Why Religion Doesn’t Make Sense
September 30, 2007
It is said that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Despite the fact that I am a Muslim, I would make a different claim. Ir-religion is the fastest growing religion in the world, if it’s possible to say that. What I mean is that more people abandon their religious beliefs without replacing them than people who switch from one religion to another. Why is this? The best answers would come from those people who have already done so and propagate that idea. Let us look at the most common reasons (taken from atheism.about.com) and see whether they are good reasons or not:
Reason 1: Multiple Gods and Religious Traditions:
It is difficult to credit any one religion as being True or any one god as being True when there have been so many throughout human history. None appears to have any greater claim to being more credible or reliable than any other. Why Christianity and not Judaism? Why Islam and not Hinduism? Why monotheism and not polytheism? Every position has had its defenders, all as ardent as those in other traditions. They can’t all be right, but they can all be wrong.
Answer: There is no doubt that there have been and continue to be numerous religions in the world. However, the idea that none have any greater claim to being more credible than any other is very incorrect. It is like saying that there have been many scientific theories throughout history but none of them has any greater claim to being more credible or reliable than any other. This is obviously foolish. There are good reasons to believe some theories and disbelieve others.
It is absolutely correct to say that they can’t all be right. If we add atheism (agnosticism, secularism, no-religion, etc.) to the list then the same argument would bounce back on the skeptic. This is not a good argument against religion because it refutes itself.
Reason 2: Contradictory Characteristics in Gods:
Theists often claim that their gods are perfect beings; they describe gods, however, in contradictory and incoherent ways. Numerous characteristics are attributed to their gods, some of which are impossible and some combinations of which are impossible. As described, it’s unlikely or impossible for these gods to exist. This doesn’t mean that no god could possibly exist, just that the ones theists claim to believe in don’t.
One Christian will define the Christian god as being so all-powerful that free will is nonexistent — who we are and what we do is entirely up to God (strict Calvinism) — while another Christian will define the Christian god as not all-powerful and who, in fact, is learning and developing alongside us (Process Theology). They can’t both be right.
When we move beyond a single religious tradition and expand to related religions, like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the differences grow exponentially. Muslims define their god as being so “other” and so unlike humanity that any attribution of human characteristics to this god is blasphemous. Christians, who ostensibly believe in the “same god,” define their god with a multitude of anthropomorphic characteristics — even to the point where they think their god became incarnate as a human being at one point in time. They can’t both be right.
Where does that leave us? Well, it doesn’t prove that any of these religions or religious beliefs are definitely false. It also doesn’t prove that no gods can or do exist. The existence of some sort of god and the truth of some religion is compatible with all of the things I describe above. As I noted, humans are fallible and it’s not impossible that they have repeatedly and consistently failed to describe some god that exists (and is perhaps getting annoyed at the situation). The problem is that the gods with contradictory characteristics aren’t the ones that can exist. If some god exists, it’s not the one being described there.
Answer: If you read carefully you would notice that this is not an argument against the idea of religion but rather is a refutation to ‘Reason 1′. How can we decide which religion is correct since none have any more claim to truth than another? The answer is to discard all religions which make contradictory claims and see what remains.
Reason 3: Religion is Self-Contradictory:
No religion is perfectly consistent when it comes to doctrines, ideas, and history. Every ideology, philosophy, and cultural tradition has inconsistencies and contradictions, so this shouldn’t be surprising — but other ideologies and traditions aren’t alleged to be divinely created or divinely sanctioned systems for following the wishes of a god. The state of religion in the world today is more consistent with the premise that they are man-made institutions.
No religion would claim that it doesn’t consist of a ‘human element’ in its interpretation, transmission, and preservation. In fact, there is a human element in everything, since we are, after all, human. If some geologist incorrectly describes a stone then the error is not in the stone but in his description of it. With that said, no religion requires any human to go beyond his own natural limitations and become perfect. The principal tenets of a religion should be very clear and everything else should be clear-enough to grasp the general idea of it.
How did anyone come to the conclusion that all religions are man-made institutions? There is no doubt that many are, some could be Divinely originated then man-evolved, while others (actually, only one, as we have discussed above) can very reasonably attributed to being the truth.
Reason 4: Gods Are Too Similar to Believers:
A few cultures, like ancient Greece, have postulated gods which appear to be as natural as human beings, but in general gods are supernatural. This means that they are fundamentally different from human beings or anything on earth. Despite this, however, theists consistently describe their gods in ways that make the supernatural appear almost mundane. Gods share so many characteristics with humans that it has been argued that gods were made in the image of man.
Answer: This is another excellent litmus test to filter out the false religions. Only a religion innocent of this charge would remain feasible. However, we should also keep in mind to differentiate anthropomorphic ideas with metaphoric language.
Reason 5: Gods Just Don’t Matter:
Theism means believing in the existence of at least one god, not that one necessarily cares much about any gods. In practice, though, theists typically place a great deal of importance on their god and insist that it and what it wants are the most important things a person can be concerned with. Depending upon the nature of a god, however, this isn’t necessarily true. It’s not obvious that the existence or desires of gods should matter to us.
Of course they think that their god is important, and of course this is closely related to what they think their god is and what it does. However, if we accept this line of reasoning, then we are accepting a particular set of characteristics which have not yet been established to be true. It must be remembered that we didn’t ask if their god with its supposed characteristics is important. Instead we asked if the existence of any god, generally speaking, was important.
Answer: This is a very unfair and illogical way of reasoning. You are not asking me if my god with its supposed characteristics is important but rather whether any god is important. There is not much of a point in answering this question. If I believe in God as defined in Islam, for example, then why would I have to remove all definitions and characteristics and try to convince you that it is just as important to believe in some chocolate idol in India (which actually melted during a heat wave a few years back)? An ancient Greek should not be burdened with convincing you that Krishna is important nor a Muslim burdened with the existence and importance of Zeus.
Anyways, the importance of the question whether God (as I define Him) exists lies in being successful in the next life as well as avoiding moral relativism (there’s no such thing as absolute good and bad) and relativism of purpose (you define your own purpose in life). These are issues in themselves which will be left for now.
Reason 6: Gods and Believers Behave Immorally:
In most religions, gods are supposed to be the source of all morality. For most believers, their religion represents an institution for promoting perfect morality. In reality, though, religions are responsible for widespread immorality and gods have characteristics or histories which make them worse than the most vile human serial killer. No one would tolerate such behavior on the part of a person, but when with a god it all becomes laudable.
Answer: This is a common accusation: religions have caused so much suffering in the world. The problem with this line of argument is the overlooking of a very important fact: that almost all people in the world (things are changing nowadays but I’m speaking historically) followed some form of religion. True atheists always have (and still continue to be, because most people claim agnosticism, which isn’t an absolute denial but rather a confession of not being sure) been very few. Therefore, the true accusation should be: humans have caused much suffering in the world (and continue to do so).
Rather, the more important question is whether they were following their respective religion while committing those acts or if they had no religion might they have done even more?
As for blaming God for his actions, a court judge is not blamed but rather applauded when he punishes a criminal. Furthermore, if death is not the end-all for humans then killing is wrong because it violates the rights of another human (whereas killing a plant wouldn’t amount to the same thing, this goes back to the moral relativism issue).
Reason 7: Evil in the World:
Closely associated with taking action that should be considered immoral is the fact that there is so much evil in the world today. If there are any gods, why don’t they act to eliminate it? The absence of substantive action against evil would be consistent with the existence of evil or at least indifferent gods, which is not impossible, but few people believe in such gods. Most claim that their gods are loving and powerful; the suffering on Earth makes their existence implausible.
Answer: This is a common complaint. The first answer is that this life is not paradise so if it was perfect, there wouldn’t be any tests. Furthermore, if God would intervene if everything then we would be held accountable for our intentions since they would never be manifested and life wouldn’t be what it is. The second answer is that evil is relative in the greater sheme of things. When you slaughter a cow it’s good for you since you can have a tasty hamburger but evil for the cow since it’s dying. Likewise, among humans incarcerating a criminal may be good for society but bad for him. The absolute standard would only rest with the Absolute Being.
Reason 8: Faith is Unreliable:
A common characteristic of both theism and religion is their reliance on faith: belief in the existence of god and in the truth of religious doctrines is neither founded upon nor defended by logic, reason, evidence, or science. Instead, people are supposed to have faith — a position they wouldn’t consciously adopt with just about any other issue. Faith, though, is an unreliable guide to reality or means for acquiring knowledge.
Answer: Please see my article ‘God: Leap of Faith?’ for an answer to this question.
Reason 9: Life is Material, not Supernatural:
Most religions say that life is much more than the flesh and matter we see around us. In addition, there is supposed to be some sort of spiritual or supernatural realm behind it all and that our “true selves” is spiritual, not material. All evidence, though, points to life being a purely natural phenomenon. All evidence indicates that who we really are — our selves — is material and dependent upon the workings of the brain. If this is so, religious and theistic doctrines are wrong.
Answer: When you say “all evidence points to life being a purely natural phenomenon” you mean empirical evidence. Well, obviously empirical methods can’t directly provide evidence for something non-empirical. Not all beliefs are confined to the empirical realm. You can’t empirically prove that your wife loves you but you can have very good reasons to believe it; and if your reasons were indeed true, anyone else becoming aware of them would believe it also.
Reason 10: There is No Good Reason to Bother Believing:
Perhaps the most basic reason for not believing in any gods is the absence of good reasons for doing so. The above are decent reasons for not believing and for questioning — and eventually leaving — whatever theistic and religious beliefs a person might have had in the past. Once a person gets beyond the bias in favor of belief, though, they may realize something critical: the burden of support lies with those claiming that belief is rational and/or necessary. Believers fail to meet this burden, though, and thus fail to provide good reasons to accept their claims.
Answer: This is the most common misconception that people have. Where does the burden of proof lie? Does an atheist/agnostic actually take a default position? The answer is that everyone has a worldview (see my lectures on “developing the islamic worldview” and “a critical examination of atheism and evolution”) and that nobody can live without one. Therefore, every must defend their own worldview (at least to themselves).
As Jaafar Shaikh Idris put it:
“One of the biggest myths of our century, a myth that is believed by almost all atheists as well as many theists, is that rationality and science are on the side of disbelief. As a corollary to this myth, disbelief is taken to be the normal position, that demands no mental effort because it needs no justification. It is the believer who is taken to task, who is required to justify his position and who is, therefore, on the defensive.
But why is disbelief taken to be normal? Purely and simply because it is wrongly thought that while a positive claim, the disbeliever, as the name indicates, is only denying that the believer has any evidence to support his claim. The two positions are, therefore, mistakenly likened to those, say, of accuser and accused. The latter does not have to prove that he is innocent, since he is assumed to be so until the contrary is proven. This picture is misleading because in it, only one of the parties, the accuser, has a problem that he wants to resolve. The accused has no problem, and is, therefore making no claim or even if he had one, it is different from that of the accuser.
A better comparison to the position of the believer and the disbeliever would be that of two politicians or economists, ‘A’ and ‘B’, arguing about inflation, a problem that affects them both. ‘A’ suggests that the cause of inflation is the sudden and tremendous increase in oil prices and, therefore, that it can only be stopped by such measures. The other, ‘B’, denies that this is the cause. He sees no causal link between the two phenomena, and has not been helped by ‘A’ to see one. We may sympathize with ‘B’, but we would certainly not think that he had done his job merely by rejecting the analysis of ‘A’.”
To be continued - I’m still not done
October 1, 2007 at 1:44 am
interesting post… but there is no religion mentioned so far that has no inconsistencies with itself… which would mean it could not have come from a “being without flaws” etc.
and you’re right. dis-belief is propagating faster than islam. i had stats to back that up actually, from an accredited academic source… but i seem ot have lost it. heh. it said that the number of non-theists grew exponentially in the last 100 years, swelling to 1.1 billion at last estimates… which is almost equal to the number of muslims, and more than there are hindus!
and that’s without counting atheistic buddhism.
i attribute this increase to massive communication with the outside world through the internet, thus enabling people to access scientific facts about the world contrary to their religion, increase in education, and the ability of people to use google to find their answers to philosophical questions rather than their parents or friends, who are most likely to belong to the same religion as themselves.
thus the re-enforcement of indoctrination has been reduced greatly by the internet!
and of course, according to the UN, education and literacy HAS increased.
October 1, 2007 at 2:48 am
Re: question #1, you can’t add atheism to the list, because it lacks the core characteristic of religion, namely a believe in a supernatural being.
The question should be read as “Every assertion of the existence and nature of supernatural beings differs. They can’t all be right, but they can all be wrong.” Most forms of human thought, whether political, social, or economic don’t make assertions about the existence of nature of such beings, including, a fortiori, atheism.
The question thus becomes “Why believe one religion over another?” If the answer doesn’t include independently confirmable evidence, then there isn’t any culturally independent way to choose among them, but if belief in Being A over Being B is culturally determined, then it isn’t true in the sense of “accurate for all possible viewers.”
October 1, 2007 at 7:52 am
salahudin: Thanks for commenting. I have not specifically mentioned any religion but as you might be able to predict from the fact that I am Muslim, Islam would be that religion without inconsistencies.
As for the stats, I do have the number of approximated non-religious people but not the rate of growth. See my lecture: Developing the Islamic Worldview 1 for the latest stats.
I would disagree with you on why this is. Rather, I would say that it is the intellectual colonization (past and present) of other peoples by the materially superior western civilization which had already rebelled against the medieval church and won. This is demonstrated by the fact that whenever the word ‘religion’ is used in a negative context, it is almost always referring to Christianity.
Not that skepticism doesn’t have its benefits but jumping from one extreme to the other is not a solution.
October 1, 2007 at 8:09 am
Re: Question 1
Yes, we can safely add atheism to the list since religion is defined as a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. Although atheism is a denial, it is a definite set of beliefs about reality. Most forms of human thought have underlying philosophical underpinnings upon which that science rests.
The point that I am making is that belief in a particular deity and rejection of belief in that deity are both sets of beliefs and must be open to scrutiny equally. To say that the doors of criticism are only open to religion and closed when it comes to irreligion is double dealing.
October 1, 2007 at 2:49 pm
But I’m not saying anything about systems of thought not being open to criticism. I’m saying atheism isn’t a religious system of thought. Your definition of religion would include a number of systems of thought that include no beliefs about supernatural beings.
Setting the semantics of ‘religion’ aside, let me make the point another way. There is a large collection of systems of human belief that ascribe causal force to supernatural entities, entities for whose existence there is no evidence independent of the belief itself.
There are other systems that do not assume the existence of any entities for which there is no evidence, a list that includes ether and phlogiston, but also the Holy Ghost and Brahman.
These are different kinds of systems. Any criticism of supernatural systems for being supernatural do not apply to the latter category, because the latter category doesn’t include those beliefs.
No matter what you do or don’t group into the category of religion, believing in something for which there is no verifiable evidence is a different kind of activity, and open to a different kind of criticism, than not believing in such things.
October 1, 2007 at 3:01 pm
When you say “no verifiable evidence” you are referring to purely empirical evidence. I’m sure you realize that beliefs, regardless of what they are about, are not confined to the empirical, nor should they be. Please see my article God:Leap of Faith?
What I mean to say is that every religious belief (or metaphysics), such as belief in angels, doesn’t require us to be able to somehow measure the traces that angels have left. It is based upon the acceptance of an authority and the acceptance of that authority rests upon intellectually satisfying reasons (you could call it ‘evidence’ if you will).
October 1, 2007 at 7:45 pm
The “evidence problem” cannot be solved when examined with a purely Western philosophical approach. The reason being that even in more advanced philosophy courses, you look at high level arguments that are applied to the battle between religion as a whole vs. disbelief. That is, all religion is thrown into a single basket and Islam doesn’t get any special distinction from Hinduism, Judaism, or especially Christianity. All religions are given equal weight and, effectively, Islam must suffer from the inequities of other beliefs.
This is not to say that Western philosophy shouldn’t necessarily be taught like this. What do you expect? You can’t really expect them to distinguish Islam just because Muslims feel it is so special. Even Muslim philosophy does the same thing in that it puts Islam vs. non-Islam and sees no difference between Christianity and Atheism. But that’s exactly why critics need to step out of the pre-defined confines their curriculum has set for them if they really want to do justice to the matter. They need to be willing to get down and dirty and disect the low level details of Islamic creed/philosophy rather than fall prey to mass media tactics and get stuck on relatively mundane issues of Islamic law (stoning, veiling, apostasy, etc.) because this only sidesteps the original issue: do Muslims have proof for what they claim or not? Because, if they do, they are fully justified in doing what they do, no matter how weird or distasteful we may find it.
Being the fair and unbiased person you are, you may ask, “Why waste my time examining Islam? Why not start with Christianity, Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny?” Well considering that Islam is such a hot topic in today’s world, it truly shocks me that the typical philsopher (of course, there are exceptions) hasn’t left his safety zone to examine Islamic creed in detail. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, all of today’s “trouble makers” are Muslim, and virtually every story in the news involves Muslims in one way or another…sounds like a good enough reason to me to start with Islam.
Bottom line…Muslims feel that Islam DOES present verifiable evidence of its truth. Atheist critics should stop standing from a distance and poking at Islam with the 10 foot long religion pole. Rather, they should open it up, dive in, and see what kind of proof Islam offers.
October 2, 2007 at 3:50 pm
“Rather, I would say that it is the intellectual colonization (past and present) of other peoples by the materially superior western civilization which had already rebelled against the medieval church and won. This is demonstrated by the fact that whenever the word ‘religion’ is used in a negative context, it is almost always referring to Christianity.”
The arguments against christianity need only a few superficial modifications, in order to be applicable to islam. and the word religion is used in the most negative to mean islam these days…
“Not that skepticism doesn’t have its benefits but jumping from one extreme to the other is not a solution.”
you seem to imply that “radical points of view” are by DEFINITION not a “solution”… however that would be wrong. Radical points of view can be more closer to solving issues or could further complicate them… but just because they are “radical” or “extremist”, doesn’t mean they are necessarily “wrong”… after all, i’m sure YOUR argument was used against muhammad when he started preaching a radically alternative solution to whatever “jahillyah” is claimed to have existed in pre-islamic bedouin society…
“Although atheism is a denial, it is a definite set of beliefs about reality.”
no it is not since atheism does not forward any propositions about the world or its cause etc. if you’re referring to evolution or the Big Bang theory etc, that would be SCIENCE… not atheism. You may be confusing the two because a lot of atheists offer that as an alternative to religious assertions about creation, however, acceptance of the scientific explanation is not proposed nor required in the atheist point of view.
October 2, 2007 at 4:44 pm
“The arguments against christianity need only a few superficial modifications, in order to be applicable to islam. and the word religion is used in the most negative to mean islam these days”
Would you care to elaborate on those modifications…
Furthermore, the propaganda against Islam is largely political and unrelated to beliefs.
As for “radical points of view” I agree with what you said. My point is that people have overreacted and thus missed the solution. It’s like a skeptic who sees a mirage for the first time. He realizes the limits of sense perception and refuses to use his eyes anymore. It’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater which is exactly what happened in the West. Christianity doesn’t work or make sense, so all religions must be the same.
“no it is not since atheism does not forward any propositions about the world or its cause etc”
Of course it does. Read my reply to “reason 10″ very carefully.
October 2, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Mustafa has done with atheism exactly what I feel atheists should do with Islam. Many Muslims are no better than the atheists I alluded to in my last comment because of their refusal to leave their pre-defined comfort zones. Mustafa, on the other hand, bravely leaps head long into the belly of the controversial beast with sword in hand by examining and addressing the arguments of atheists from THEIR POINT OF VIEW.
“The arguments against christianity need only a few superficial modifications, in order to be applicable to islam. and the word religion is used in the most negative to mean islam these days…”
I urge you to stop poking at Islam with your 10-foot pole and dive in. I, too, am curious to know what modifications you are talking about. Your mentality is EXACTLY what I addressed in my last comment. By making the Christianity-to-Islam induction you just did, you are copping out from going in depth. This obedience to conventional atheist rhetoric is no better than the Catholics who mindlessly obey the pope.
Don’t treat Islam like a black box. Go ahead and pick it apart, nobody is stopping you and I am actually encouraging you. Muslims have their own unique arguments for Islam independent of those used by any other faith. I will be the first one to bash on religion and why it is so bad for the world, using mostly the same arguments you use. But Islam, in my belief, is truth, not religion, and is thus immune to any of those arguments. Remember, in Islam, it is not a comparison of religion vs. irreligion but rather of Islam vs. non-Islam. Neither Mustafa nor I are perfect, but Islam is so pick it apart directly.
I personally have never met a critic of Islam that had an argument, valid or otherwise, against the creed of Islam. I believe that this is because it’s a tough bargain. After all, who can argue that if there is a god, then He can only be ONE and that he alone has the right to be worshipped? It is a very pure and simple belief. No clergy, no pope, no sons, no daughters, no nothing, just you and the one who created you and an instant direct connection whenever you want (prayer). If you did believe in God, isn’t this the way you would want it to be? If there is a true supernatural creed, isn’t this the only one that could make sense?
Of course, there are those who make an attempt to dissect the creed of Islam by finding “errors” in the Qur’an but they are few are far between and this is because it is not easy to do so. Instead, you just find people beating the life out of the same old LEGAL issues over, and over, and over again rather than getting into the real meat of Islam, which is, of course, the creed. Critics of Islam need to try to find (but not invent) GENUINE errors in the Qur’an, creed of Islam, authenticity of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and so on.
Christianity, and other religions, on the other hand, can be debunked by examining its creed and that’s why people rarely resort to picking on its legal system. Worship a man? Why should I do that? God had a son? How can that be? Is God three or one? Who wrote the bible and why are there so many obvious scientific and historical errors in it? A layman with some common sense can debunk the entire creed of Christianity just by skimming through a few pages.
October 2, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Upon re-reading my last comment, I would like to sincerely apologize if it sounded hostile, it was not meant to be. Sometimes you think in one tone in your head but it comes out in a different tone when written.
October 2, 2007 at 7:41 pm
“Would you care to elaborate on those modifications…”
sure. science and islam = incompatible.
evolution vs creation - creation in the common sense as held by the majority of muslims… not an imaginative and analogical interpretation of it like “eve being made from adam’s rib cage” to be taken as “spiritual split of oneness” or something obscure like that.
man is made from clay - incompatible with science. (again, not taking it to be “metaphorical” etc, which i find to be more of an apologetic argument than objective and quantifiable)
slavery being endorsed and not forbidden in the quran.
the concept of heaven and hell (carrot and stick) making men actually immoral since morality is an innate duty and ought not to be based on greed and terror. - doesn’t apply to the sufi sect, obviously.
“Furthermore, the propaganda against Islam is largely political and unrelated to beliefs.”
you may be correct… although that STILL means.. empirically speaking… the word religion when spoken of in the negative is associated with islam, regardless of the impression of that religion being correct or not.
“It’s like a skeptic who sees a mirage for the first time. He realizes the limits of sense perception and refuses to use his eyes anymore.”
refusing to use “eyes” is mis-portraying skeptics, isn’t it? a skeptic who realizes his eyes can decieve him, learns to DISTRUST his eyes… and as a result seeks more concrete proof - whatever that may be. therefore it isn’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater… that’s actually opening your mind up by realizing how ignorant one really is… thereby instilling in the skeptic a passionate thirst for knowledge… a thirst that allows him to learn and grow, as he seeks verifable and justified information.
“Christianity doesn’t work or make sense, so all religions must be the same.”
oh i don’t think that necessarily… i only reject the religions i’ve come across so far. hinduism, islam, christianity, religious taoism, cuficianism and buddhism… based on the rejection of certain claims like “life after death” - no empirical evidence of it!
“The answer is that everyone has a worldview (see my lectures on “developing the islamic worldview” and “a critical examination of atheism and evolution”) and that nobody can live without one. Therefore, every must defend their own worldview (at least to themselves).”
Oh i agree with that… but you see, atheism is NOT a world view… it is the rejection of the theistic world view. as such an atheist may actually believe in a world view based on a practical sense: marxism, anarchism, etc… or on a spiritual sense the way atheistic buddhism does… or even philosophical taoism…
or… quite simply, humanism.
but these world views have little to do with atheism itself.
October 2, 2007 at 7:48 pm
“Go ahead and pick it apart, nobody is stopping you and I am actually encouraging you.”
i’ve already done that… not here though, but i remind you that you don’t know my history as it isn’t displayed in the short dialog we’ve had so far…
“Muslims have their own unique arguments for Islam independent of those used by any other faith.”
Yes Muslim arguments often use semantical somersaults way better than their christian counter parts… and many of the arguments against christianity may not fare well against islam… but a lot still DO apply.
“Of course, there are those who make an attempt to dissect the creed of Islam by finding “errors” in the Qur’an but they are few are far between and this is because it is not easy to do so. Instead, you just find people beating the life out of the same old LEGAL issues over, and over, and over again rather than getting into the real meat of Islam, which is, of course, the creed. Critics of Islam need to try to find (but not invent) GENUINE errors in the Qur’an, creed of Islam, authenticity of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and so on.”
I hear ya… and frankly those people failed to persuade me to leave islam.
my arguments against islam stem from philosophical reasons.
you can read my story of apostasy here:
http://towelianism.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/my-experience-with-islam-part-1-my-islamic-background/
http://towelianism.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/my-experience-with-islam-part-2-disagreeing-with-theology/
http://towelianism.wordpress.com/2007/06/09/articles-of-apostacy-part-3-exploring-muslim-minds/
kind of long, but it will help you understand that my position is actually unique… in contrast to the arguments you’re talking about.
October 3, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Ok, now we are talking. I’m glad you took Sean’s advice to finally speak up. So, let’s begin.
Science and Islam = incompatible?
The truth is that no scientific FACT is incompatible with Islam. There is not a single scientific FACT that is contradicted by the Quran. If you don’t think that that is anything special, name any other book that could make the same claim. No, don’t say that words could be twisted in order to make it fit the mould of science. Check the bible, the books of the greeks, etc. and you will see that it’s just not true. As for scientific theories, the more probable one’s are usually confirmed anyways (big bang, etc.) but it is not a necessary test anyways. Would we confirm Darwin’s theory that the white man is more evolved than the black man and thus superior as was believed to be science? Since I’m not white, I would strongly disagree
As for your contentions: evolution is not a fact at all. In fact (no pun intended), all science points to its falsity. Just go and calculate the probabilistic formation of a one human cell and you will see the reality (see my lecture on evolution and developing islamic worldview lecture 1). Scientists are all agreed that they really don’t know how life originated on earth, so where the contradiction?
As for slavery, any objective analysis of the issue and what the Qur’an says about it would indicate that it was abrogated by establishing principles which would gradually pave the way towards it abrogation. Like wine, forbidden in steps, the same with slavery given the world situation present. You really think that the abolition in America was due to a sincere desire to end it rather than for political/economic reasons? Check your history.
As for heaven and hell, morality is both innate and part of the test of life. Would you promote law and order or anarchy hoping that the morality will be sufficient since we don’t want people to be moral only out of fear of the cops?
“although that STILL means.. empirically speaking… the word religion when spoken of in the negative is associated with islam”
I don’t see how that affects the truth of it.
“refusing to use “eyes” is mis-portraying skeptics, isn’t it?”
I was referring to extreme skeptics like David Hume and Imam Ghazzali (during one point in his life) to make a point. I agree that moderate skepticism is a very good thing. In fact, that is the basis of Islam, to not blindly follow inherited beliefs.
“i only reject the religions i’ve come across so far. hinduism, islam, christianity, religious taoism, cuficianism and buddhism… based on the rejection of certain claims like “life after death” - no empirical evidence of it!”
Let me ask you a question, and be honest. Is there anything you believe in which is devoid of direct empirical evidence?
“but you see, atheism is NOT a world view… it is the rejection of the theistic world view. as such an atheist may actually believe in a world view based on a practical sense: marxism, anarchism, etc… or on a spiritual sense the way atheistic buddhism does… or even philosophical taoism… or… quite simply, humanism.but these world views have little to do with atheism itself”
I strongly disagree. It’s like me saying that monotheism is not a worldview. Then saying, monotheists may believe in a world view such as Islam, but this worldview has little to do with monotheism itself. Obviously, this statement is incorrect.
October 4, 2007 at 7:58 am
“sure. science and islam = incompatible.
evolution vs creation - creation in the common sense as held by the majority of muslims… not an imaginative and analogical interpretation of it like “eve being made from adam’s rib cage” to be taken as “spiritual split of oneness” or something obscure like that.”
“man is made from clay - incompatible with science. (again, not taking it to be “metaphorical” etc, which i find to be more of an apologetic argument than objective and quantifiable)”
Science is not an absolute truth. As a matter of fact, an entire field of knowledge called engineering has been developed to deal with the inequities and inconsistencies of science. Hence, only incontovertible scientific evidence can be used. To quote Dr. Maurice Bucaille, “We do not, for example have an approximate date for man’s appearance on Earth. We have however discovered remains of human works which we can situate beyond a shadow of a doubt at before the tenth millenium B.C. Hence we cannot consider the Biblical reality on this subject to be compatible with science.” Neither the rib theory nor the clay theory can be disproved beyond a shadow of a doubt. You merely stated them to be proofs of the invalidity of Islam without any reasoning as to why. Why is it inconsistent with science? Please explain.
Furthermore, the Qur’an is a book of guidance, not science. Only as much science as is needed for the purpose of guidance was revealed. For example, it was of no purpose for God to inform us what the organic breakdown of the primordial clay mixture was, how much nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon it contained, etc. Nor would it be of benefit if he told us that the clay came from a comet that crashed into Earth like many modern day scientists theorize. He left it open ended because the benefit of informing us that we came from clay and ribs is to remind us arrogant human beings of our humble beginnings and the exact scientific details are not needed for this purpose. At the same time, God knows the scientific truth and did not reveal these verses such that they are contradictory to it. If we insist on knowing the exact details, we need to figure out for ourselves because God is our deity, not our science teacher. I find it interesting that many Atheists can believe in something like the primordial soup theory which says that ALL life, not just humans, came from an icky pond that was randomly struck by lightning but yet they scoff at the clay thing. Like I demonstrated, the clay theory and other scientific facts in the Quran are very general and do not preclude any possibilities whereas atheistic theories are so specific and precise that you would think the scientists were there when it happened! For example, the verses of embryology in the Quran and their moral lesson have always been there but their scientific manifestation was not realized until very recently. I bet people laughed at these verses too in previous days.
You said that the same arguments that can be applied against Christianity can be applied against Islam with minor modification. Christians also believe in the rib and clay theories so you didn’t make any modifications at all. You just used the same arguments used for Christianity. Again, poking with a 10 foot pole and refusing to explore Islamic creed in detail. Like I have been begging you, if you are going to criticize Islam, please criticize it correctly by crafting a criticism tailored specifically for Islam.
“slavery being endorsed and not forbidden in the quran.”
Besides the fact that you have grossly oversimplified the issue, it belongs in a discussion regarding Islamic Law, not creed. Listing your grievances against Islamic Law does not disprove the Islamic creed but on the other hand, proving the Islamic creed would necessarily justify the Islamic Law and its injunctions. Like I said in a previous comment, if one can establish the authority of a religion through its creed, then whatever is within its law is fully justified.
“the concept of heaven and hell (carrot and stick) making men actually immoral since morality is an innate duty and ought not to be based on greed and terror. - doesn’t apply to the sufi sect, obviously. ”
This is a very subjective and emotional argument and is hardly a “proof” against Islam. One can just as easily argue it the other way (i.e., that the so called “carrot and stick” method makes you more moral).
Also, this shows that you have precluded certain possibilities regarding the truth. A sincere truth seeker would admit his ignorance and be open to any possibility. Truth is truth whether you like it or not and you have to adapt to it. So prejudging Islam based on some concepts you don’t like doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t the truth. You have to start from a truly neutral position, assume absolutley nothing, and use reasoning and evidence to go from there. Harvard Professor of Ethics John Rawls in his book “A Theory of Justice” called this concept the “original position.”
“refusing to use “eyes” is mis-portraying skeptics, isn’t it? a skeptic who realizes his eyes can decieve him, learns to DISTRUST his eyes… and as a result seeks more concrete proof - whatever that may be. therefore it isn’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater… that’s actually opening your mind up by realizing how ignorant one really is… thereby instilling in the skeptic a passionate thirst for knowledge… a thirst that allows him to learn and grow, as he seeks verifable and justified information.”
See my paragraph above. You advocate open mindedness but I don’t feel that you are taking your own advice.
“oh i don’t think that necessarily… i only reject the religions i’ve come across so far. hinduism, islam, christianity, religious taoism, cuficianism and buddhism… based on the rejection of certain claims like “life after death” - no empirical evidence of it!”
I would just like to comment that even the saints of Western philosophy, Plato and Aristotle, felt it was more noble and dignified to seek answers by reasoning rather than by empirical experimentation. They felt that experiments are for the ignorant and that the true scholars and higher minds understood things from their reasoning.
Somebody pointed out to me that I am entering an age old debate that will never be solved so why bother? My intention is two fold:
1) I am not trying to convince Atheists to accept Islam. All I would like is for one to bring forward something better than the tired old rhetoric and subjective analysis I am accustomed to. I am dying to meet one that has done some in-depth textual research and has some authoritative knowledge of the matter and uses arguments tailored specifically for Islam, of similar or superior quality than the work Mustafa does on Atheism. I know there are a few big names out there that have done this, but your typical everyday Atheist never does so. If you can’t do so, I beg of you to ask one of your friends to do it so that I can be intellectually stimulated by an Atheist, for once. I might even pay you for it! Just like I am sure you are sick of bible bumpers shouting “Jesus loves you!” or Muslims making the same old apologetic arguments, I am sick of atheists that are overcome by their emotions and peripheral issues regarding Islamic Law.
2) I want to show fellow Muslims that the atheistic emperor has no clothes. Everybody is so afraid of the big bad atheist because he is today’s dominant world force. Muslims approach Christians, Zionists, etc. so eagerly for debate but they shy away from Atheists. Shying away from engaging Atheism does no good for Muslims and shying away from using your brain does no good for the Atheist. Both should step up to the plate and put up or shut up. Truth will stand out from falsehood. Mustafa has done this. Muslims need to realize that engaging an Atheist is in essence no different than engaging anybody else and that there is nothing to fear. Their arguments melt away just as easily when you apply a little heat.
October 4, 2007 at 4:32 pm
“The truth is that no scientific FACT is incompatible with Islam”
i see you chose to ignore my previous point. man is NOT made from clay. the quran’s wrong.
scientific fact: genetics - need 16 COUPLES to produce a large enough genepool that can create society. incest probabilistically produces mutations and defects.
quranic fact: adam and eve produced incestuous progeny that birthed humanity.
also, Noah not only created a ship that could carry life onwards, but also somehow managed to grab all the millions of different species of animals and put them on his ship… and that too, only ONE COUPLE of each… and “not” surprisingly all these animals were in walking distance from his village.
:/
and what DOES noah’s story say about god? man’s sin = animal kingdom being destroyed as well? why land animals and not fish then? they get a free ride eh?
issue of ethics:
soddom and gamorrah?
homosexual village not just destroyed, but totally demolished with a METEOR shower… for what? for preferring a different sort of sexual plumbing!
deserving of death!? by meteor shower? what about lut’s wife who just.. TURNED to LOOK at the village where her family was being murdered in a fiery shower… because she loved them… what happened to her? boom “god” got her too. :/
god kills innocent child?
story of musa’s travels: meets a man of god himself… who on god’s instructions… kills an innocent CHILD… but the same god gives musa’s antagonist the Pharaoh MULTIPLE chances at “doing the right thing”, even though he rountinely continues to do wrong.
god’s verdict on pre-marital sex?
even if you think pre-marital sex is a “bad” thing, you still can’t accept the quran’s prescribed punishment of two adults making love: take them out in public and WHIP them 100 times. talk about MEDIEVEL cruelty eh?
god’s stance on slavery:
it seems you haven’t actually read the quran in quite as much detail… because god NEVER abrogated the slavery clauses to make it FORBIDDEN. you get this? the quran does NOT forbid slavery. instead it extensively talks about it… and as for abrogation: in one of the LAST few medinan verses to be revealed, god instructed muhammad to capture people as slaves…
now let’s see how much you know what you’re talking about… you said:
“I was referring to extreme skeptics like David Hume and Imam Ghazzali ”
David Hume eh????
funny… how David Hume is NOT KNOWN to be an extreme skeptic and was only referred to as one by me. i happen to believe David Hume’s arguments are the most radical, but that’s only because i was instructed by an ESOTERIC and LITTLE KNOWN professor of epistemology, whose latest journal article was ARGUMENTATIVE about david hume being a radical skeptic… the fact that you just used his name in your statement means you’re simply bouncing of whatever i’m saying and don’t actually have a clue as to the SUBSTANCE of my point of view.
for example, you have a skewed understanding of atheism… because you still haven’t understood that “atheism” is to “vacuum/absence” and monotheism is to “substance/presence”. in that sense, atheism does not push nor pull any one to ANY ideological world view… they monotheism or any “theism” does.
example: theism asserts a world view through premises of intelligent design / creation / purpose of life.
ATHEISM has NO assertion at all. atheism is simply a REJECTION of theism. you see what i’m saying? atheism is not INSTRUCTING / PREACHING anything… it is COUNTERING preaching / teaching of theists.
THEISM on the other hand has concepts and propositions it FORWARDS to people.
___
iqbal:
“Science is not an absolute truth”
now that’s a radically different TOPIC altogether!
i was replying specifically to your friend’s statement that there are no contradictions between the quran and science…. the argument is not about “which one is correct”… but to show that there ARE contradictions.
i’ll reply to your post when i have more time.
October 4, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Please do respond when you get the time, I’d greatly appreciate it.
It seems like you have ignored the principles I have proposed to set forth thus far in every post.
I would just like to make the quick comment that Islam does not suggest that the flood of Noah was a worldwide event. The world “ard” used in the Qur’an often means land, not the entire planet. For example:
28:4 Truly Pharaoh elated himself in the land (ard) and broke up its people into sections, depressing a small group among them: their sons he slew, but he kept alive their females: for he was indeed a maker of mischief.
Obviously, Pharoh elated himself in his “ard,” meaning Egypt, not the entire planet. Similarly, when Allah flooded the “ard,” it was Noah’s “ard,” not the whole world. When you say that Noah’s task was simply impossible, that is because you are looking to the biblical narration of the story. I could be wrong but I don’t think there is any evidence to suggest your claim applies to the Quranic narration.
Dr. Spencer Wells, Project Director of the well famous Genographic Project and Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society (National Geographic is Atheistic in nature, by the way), has concluded that all humans alive today descended from a single man in Africa who live 60,000-90,000 years ago. He is a real scientist, not a nose picker. He backs up all of his claims with empirical experimentation.
My point is not to necessarily endorse his work, but to demonstrate what I said in my last post, that is, only incontrovertible scientific facts that are universally agreed upon can be used to disprove Islam because even the research scientists would beg to differ with each other sometimes. When you make a claim against Islam, it must be true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are applying generalized criticisms against Christianity to Islam. Where are the “minor modifications?”
October 4, 2007 at 7:58 pm
back online for a bit.. please don’t think i’m ignoring your posts or your points thus far - i was NOT responding to you but tackling what the other chap was saying… and though the two conversations have similarity (and hence your impression that i was talking about your topic but ignoring your points) they are on two very different grounds.
i don’t have time again to respond right now. you’ll have to wait a few days before i come online again though but i assure you that i am positively OBSESSED with answering everything you say!!!
October 4, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Musa killing the youth
If you read closely, Musa didn’t kill the youth, another man named Khader did. Musa vehemently objected to Khader’s actions (he said in Surah Kahf, “you have reached the limit of excuses with me”
but Khader later revealed that things were not as they seemed to Musa and that he had killed the boy for a good reason. Blatantly misquoting the Qur’an (I can’t say with certainty that you did so deliberatly so I will give you the benefit of the doubt) does not serve your purpose very well and diminishes the credibility of your stance.
Slavery, premarital sex, homosexuality
Again, you are side stepping the real issue. This is just throwing a bunch of “booga booga” in everyone’s face by picking on Islamic Law rather than creed, the meat of the matter. Let me spell out what I have been trying to say all this time with simple mathematical logic:
If A proves B and B proves C, then A proves C.
Where:
A=Islamic Creed
B=God’s authority
C=Islamic Law
Since B and C are hinging on A, it makes most sense to prove or disprove A and not jump the gun by moving on to B or C.
Looking forward to your response. I understand that you are busy, I have a tendency to get swampped with commitments myself so take your time.
October 5, 2007 at 3:07 am
to iqbal:
if YOU read closely, i never said musa killed him. and if you knew the story better, you’d also realize that “khizer” was not mentioned as his name … that’s speculation on the part of islamic mullahs/scholars.
“Khader later revealed that things were not as they seemed to Musa and that he had killed the boy for a good reason”
er… that’s not blatantly misquoting the quran since my statement remains: god has an INNOCENT boy killed… and you can’t seriously argue now that the boy was guilty… since the boy had not done ANYTHING up till the moment of his death at the hands of god’s servant.
:/
blatantly misquoting my foot!
“Neither the rib theory nor the clay theory can be disproved beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
LMAO! is this what i’m arguing against? okay, here are two ways i can show you how insane your point of view is:
1- just because SCIENCE is constantly revising itself, does not mean that man WAS made from clay
2- it is a widely accepted scientific fact that man is not made from clay…
do i have to actually STATE the second one to you? or do you not accept that and actually BELIEVE man was made from clay!? heheh.
and i have good ol’ maurice’s book… i’ve never read more blatant lies, circular reasoning and imaginative ways to pull wool over believers eyes. the reason why it might have persuaded you is because of your inherent bias to believe islam is right… you tend to over look BLATANT contradictions with science.
“Furthermore, the Qur’an is a book of guidance, not science.”
well then stop making scientific claims about it… because the quran IS incompatible with science like i just showed you.
“He left it open ended because the benefit of informing us that we came from clay and ribs is to remind us arrogant human beings of our humble beginnings and the exact scientific details are not needed for this purpose.”
er… i think our conversation is done here. i refuse to talk to irrational nut cases. rational nut cases, maybe. but not irrational ones.
and here i thought i have bumped in to smart theists!
October 5, 2007 at 5:20 am
salahudin,
I advise you to please calm down so we can discuss/debate these issues in a dignified manner as we have been doing. Personal insults are not welcome, neither by Muslims nor by Ex-Muslims.
October 5, 2007 at 7:11 am
Yah, emotions don’t fly here, only logical reasoning (whether you think the other person has it or not). Let’s try to keep things at least semi-scholarly. If you read my comments, you will see that one of the problems I have always had with critics of Islam is that they tend to boil everything down to a debate of emotions and unsubstantiated claims, kinda like angry kindergartners.
If you feel I am wrong about something, let me know. I can tell you with honesty that I want only the truth, whatever it is. Your attitude in the last post is no better than that of the corrupt mullahs who try to “convince” others to practice Islam by telling them how stupid they are and that they’re gonna go to Hell.
That being said, I would like to re-apologize if anything I said may have sounded antagonistic because it wasn’t meant to be so at all.
October 6, 2007 at 5:57 am
Here are answers to some of the problems that you seem to be struggling with. Whether the answers are satisfactory will be judged by every individual reader:
“i see you chose to ignore my previous point. man is NOT made from clay. the quran’s wrong.”
I thought that I had answered your post in a general way but if you want a specific answer to this question then first understand that the quran says that man is created from teen (often translated as mud, clay). In another place it says that every living creature was created from water. In another place that We created man from a drop of semen. And in another that he was created from an ‘alaq (often translated as blood clot). As iqbals hinted at, some of these are self-relevant that could be tested, such as checking whether a human really comes from an ‘alaq. However, when we say that angels are made of light, jinn of fire, and humans of clay, it is something of the ghayb (unseen) which cannot and will never be testable. Then why are you arguing about it when we both know that not everything we believe in has to be able to be empirically known. This is not a resort to saying that everything is metaphorical as you might be quick to conclude. There are a lot of stories/history we believe in that can never be tested empirically. Don’t deny that Adam ate from the tree just because you can’t locate the tree.
As for incest and mutations, I find it surprising that you of all people would use that against Islam. On what basis is incest wrong in your belief system? What would stop an atheist from incest? Secondly, you believe that all species descended from a common ancestor by means of natural selection and mutations. And you are telling me that you cant believe that different humans could have resulted while you believe that a fish could turn into a bird by these same mutations. This doesn’t seem fair at all.
I believe iqbals answered the Noah criticisms.
As for ethics, I will answer these questions although iqbals has a point that the topic of discussion is fundamental beliefs rather than these side issues.
Sexual plumbing: They were not only destroyed for their sexual tastes but rather for their rejection of the Prophet and other wicked acts. Keep in mind that they raped the two angels (who were in human form). How would you feel if someone raped your family or your guests? Would you say that the poor guys just needed to get laid? I don’t think so.
God kills innocent: God knew that the kid wasn’t innocent and this is one of the very few times that he punished before maturity. Remember, that God knows what will happen and this doesn’t take away free will. Anyone who is adamant on rationalizing God’s actions will remain confused forever like the one who tries to imagine infinity.
Whipping the adulterer: keep in mind that you need 4 witnesses and if 4 people see you doing what you’re doing then it means you are doing it in public. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to live in a society where people are doing the deed while I walk down the street.
Slavery: It is you who hasn’t pondered over the Quran or my previous post. Islam set up a system that would “eventually” abrogate slavery. Let me put it clearly, intoxicants were forbidden through similar measures in gradual stages. Why? Because it wasn’t prudent to forbid it all at once. But those measures eventually caused it to be forbidden. Likewise, the measures on slavery are like the early measures on intoxicants. Rather than openly abolishing it, which would have had severe impacts on society (since slaves were property) it redefined it. It’s called diplomacy in reform.
“now let’s see how much you know what you’re talking about”
I don’t think this is a personal show of who knows more but I will backup my statements for your satisfaction.
I didn’t quote you or your opinion on David Hume. I call him a radical skeptic from my readings. If you claim that the universe doesn’t require any explanation then you are a radical skeptic. I am quoting Prof. Richard Dawkins who criticized him the best. He said that after seeing all the amazing things in nature you still don’t feel that it screams out for an explanation then he has no hope for you. Furthermore, what difference does it really make what he was? I was using him as an example of an extreme skeptic. If you don’t believe it then let’s take Ghazzali as admitted by him in “Deliverance from error”
As for your understanding of what is (a)theism and how they are different. Please try to understand what Jafar Idris said. You are doing exactly what he was explaining not to do. You say “atheism has no assertion at all..atheism is simply a rejection of theism”. That is a contradictory statement. Just think about it. Atheism is asserting that theism is wrong. We can play with semantics all day but the reality is that everyone has a belief system. If you don’t want to call atheism that then fine. Don’t argue as an atheist. Argue according to what YOU believe, because you DO have a worldview. And you do have instruction/preaching against religion. Making fun of Islam as you do on your website is a form of preaching, to the choir of atheists/agnostics.
Iqbals is right about the story of Noah which differs from the biblical version.
“i am positively OBSESSED with answering everything you say!!! ”
well, maybe you should chill out a bit so you can think straight when you reply
“it is a widely accepted scientific fact that man is not made from clay… ”
it is a fact that we are talking about the first human and it is a widely accepted scientific fact that scientists don’t really know anything at all about the first human being.
“and i have good ol’ maurice’s book… i’ve never read more blatant lies, circular reasoning and imaginative ways to pull wool over believers eyes. the reason why it might have persuaded you is because of your inherent bias to believe islam is right… you tend to over look BLATANT contradictions with science.”
Before making fun of anyone why don’t you present evidence for what you say. Raising your voice and pointing fingers will achieve nothing but confirm the stereotype against atheists and apostates.
“i refuse to talk to irrational nut cases. rational nut cases, maybe. but not irrational ones.”
Statements like this are not conducive towards dialogue.
October 7, 2007 at 6:08 pm
interesting stuff…lovin it
October 11, 2007 at 6:22 pm
I find the touch of humer in the statement “confirm the stereotype against atheists and apostates”. Good deal.
October 23, 2007 at 5:38 pm
You say that it is evident that there must be an originator, an intelligent being, a “God,” who created and is sustaining all that exists, because neither us nor the universe could have been designed and brought into being by coincidence.
A skeptic may say: OK, what about his God of yours, isn’t this God subject to the same logic? How does this flawless and complex entity exist by coincidence?
October 23, 2007 at 9:06 pm
this*
October 24, 2007 at 5:21 am
I don’t think this was directed towards me because I didn’t say that (of course I believe it though) but I will answer it anyways. Besides, I don’t think Mustafa will get to you any time soon since he is so busy. There are many ways to answer this but I will give you one of the most popular arguments.
Basically, the question, in much simpler words, is, “If God created us, who created God?”
Let’s get to it:
1. Every finite being has a cause.
Have you ever seen anything that didn’t come from somewhere? There are detailed proofs but for time’s sake, let’s assume that everyone acknowledges this, even the skeptic, or else he wouldn’t have asked this question to begin with.
2. Nothing finite and dependent can cause itself.
Have you ever seen something cause itself? The idea is incomprehensible to us. Again, let’s assume everyone acknowledges this, even the skeptic, or else he wouldn’t have asked his original question in the first place.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
Now this is where the skeptic and the believer begin to diverge.
“Infinity” is a mathematical concept developed to estimate values although it is often used like a number. For example, for those of you that know calculus, you know that the Riemann sum is a technique for estimating the area under a given function for a given range by adding the areas of individual rectangles beneath the curve.
Here is a picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LeftRiemann2.png
If you keep adding more and more rectangles and keep making them thinner and thinner, you will get a better estimate. If you make 100 rectangles, it will be more accurate than 10 and 1,000,000 rectangles will be more accurate than 100. However, it is STILL just an estimate. So mathematicians got the idea that if you use an INFINITE amount of INFINITLEY thin rectangles, you will get the EXACT value underneath the curve! Congratulations, you finished your homework and aced the exam, but what the heck is an infinite number of infinitely thin rectangles?!? It really means nothing. “Infinity” is just a nifty little trick that helps us calculate integrals. It has no manifestation in the real world. It is merely a tool to help us model an arbitrarily large limit. Just because the concept is easy to understand doesn’t mean that it actually exists in nature.
So, if you ask, “Who created the Creator?” you will inevitably find yourself asking the question an infinite amount of times and the idea of infinite creators makes no sense. Thus, the skeptic concludes that there CAN’T be a creator. However, we already acknowledged that we came from somewhere and that we didn’t create ourselves. Out of desperation to find an answer, the skeptic throws this crucial fact in the trash.
There is another possibility we haven’t yet discussed.
4. There must be a first cause; or, there must be something that is not an effect.
The conclusion is that there is an original cause that exists outside of the domain of its effects. This cause cannot exist within the universe it caused or else it would defy proposition number 1 and 2. This conclusion meets all of the above criteria. This “cause” is God.
To demonstrate that God must be outside His creation, lets assume that there are, in fact, an infinite amount of creators (a’udhubillah). We know that we can’t count creators backwards until we get to the first one or else we will never finish. Let’s look at this chain backwards though. For argument’s sake, let’s say we somehow begin at the first creator and count forward until we get to the final creation (us). Since there are an infinite number of creators between the first creator and us, this would imply that we do not exist. However, we know that we DO exist! Hence, the original creator, God, must exist outside of our creation.
On a side note, this is also proof that Jesus cannot be God. If he is God, then why did he exist in his own creation and how did he create himself? This belief defies all of the propositions we established using simple common sense.
The only explanation that meets all of our criteria and does not contradict itself is that we were created by one God and that He exists outside of our realm of comprehension.
The Qur’an says all this in much more beautiful and simple words:
7:54 Your Guardian-Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six days, and is firmly established on the throne (of authority): He draweth the night as a veil o’er the day, each seeking the other in rapid succession: He created the sun, the moon, and the stars, (all) governed by laws under His command. Is it not His to create and to govern? Blessed be Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds!
10:3 Verily your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, and is firmly established on the throne (of authority), regulating and governing all things. No intercessor (can plead with Him) except after His leave (hath been obtained). This is Allah your Lord; Him therefore serve ye: will ye not receive admonition?
13:2 Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that ye can see; is firmly established on the throne (of authority); He has subjected the sun and the moon (to his Law)! Each one runs (its course) for a term appointed. He doth regulate all affairs, explaining the signs in detail, that ye may believe with certainty in the meeting with your Lord.
October 27, 2007 at 2:43 am
This just sounds like another human with an ego.
Religion separates people. It’s obvious that this person is very defensive. Once it even claimed that an explaination was not worth answering yet it answered the (apparently) unworthy statments.
Save the world with your ego.
I’ll get an e-mail about my behavior then just remind this person that again they are acting like an egotistical animal fighting over chemical reactions (faith) that they get in their head after thinking about what they’ve been RAISED ON and not what they were born with. No you were not born with clothes either.
“No you’re one that’s wrong!” It’ll say. Yet it’ll try to sound educated.
How many times have we heard this from religious people? Too many times.It’s getting old just like your failing traditions.
October 27, 2007 at 8:22 am
WE, I am confused, not sure what/who you are talking about because your post is very vague. Also, your choice of pronouns is throwing me off as well. Please clarify. Thank you.
October 27, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I’m not quite sure exactly what you are trying to say either but just make sure that you aren’t “confirming the stereotype” again as I have mentioned before.
October 27, 2007 at 2:41 pm
To summarize what iqbals wrote regarding infinity and first cause: the principle of causality is governed by time and space and since God created both of them and exists independent of both He is excluded from the causality principle. Therefore, there is no legitimacy in even asking the question: “who created God?” since it would only apply to something bound by time and space.