Atheism

[Sephiroth]

"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding. Reason is a whore, the truest enemy of faith."

-Martin Luther

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding. Reason is a whore, the truest enemy of faith."

-Martin Luther

Interesting quote, Sephiroth. I'm not sure if I would agree, however. Islam encourages people to use logic and reason to attain a higher level of faith. We need to use reason to verify our faith and ensure that it is logical. Isn't it God who gave humanity the gift of reason?

Holy Qur'an 3:190-191 Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day - there are indeed signs for men of understanding; Men who remember God, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth …​

 

[SpaceFalcon2001]

The Rambam (Maimonides, aka Rabbi Moses Ben Maimun) writes (Guide, II) that G-d can not do the paradoxical.

HaShem created Logic and reasoning for our understanding. However, One can be a practicing and a self-fulfilled human being without understanding everything. A lack of understanding is not a justification for a person to reject that whatever happens is the Will of G-d, who is actively managing the world in a way that is consistent with its design as He knows it. His management is in the best long-term interests of its inhabitants, although we may not be able to immediately appreciate it.

Regardless, Judaism encourages study and research.

A person is required to try and understand everything he or she is capable of understanding! This is reflected in our teaching: "It is not upon you to complete the work, yet you are not free to excuse yourself from it" (Ethics Of The Fathers 2:21).

 

[Sephiroth]

Interesting quote, Sephiroth. I'm not sure if I would agree, however. Islam encourages people to use logic and reason to attain a higher level of faith. We need to use reason to verify our faith and ensure that it is logical. Isn't it God who gave humanity the gift of reason?

Holy Qur'an 3:190-191 Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day - there are indeed signs for men of understanding; Men who remember God, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth …​

I agree that logic can be used to strengthen faith, but I also believe that to become conceited in one's knowledge of the world, to pretend to understand all that God is and all that he has created is hubris and unhealthy for faith (i.e. the assumption made by some logicians that science will eventually explain everything, even God, away to reveal some deeper truth beyond Him). In the original text of that quote, in German, 'reason' appears as "Wissenschaft," the German word for science. At that time in Europe there were great conflicts between religious people and scientists. Some, like Galileo, were believers in God and thought that science would be a way of better understanding God's creation, but others, particularly in Germany, grouped together in cabals where they became virulently anti-religious: the Illuminati for instance. Certainly the behaviour of the Catholic Church (something Martin Luther was endeavouring to change) was the largest contributor to that environment, but the anti-religious climate of the scientific community was also representative of what he encountered in his daily life. Also faith was very important to Luther's interperetation of Christianity. He saw it as the main basis of salvation, and that the bare minimum of what a man needed to find faith lay in scripture. In his 95 theses, Luther resorted to logic to refute Catholic doctrine many times, but I think his basic belief was that faith should supercede science in areas where science might cast doubt, as it appears to do with the preponderance of atheistic scientists.

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

No disagreement there, Sephiroth and SpaceFalcon.

Btw, SF was that a quote from the Talmud?

 

[root]

Atheism, does not imply their is no "Creator".

Faith requires no scientific basis. For some, we can read a bible and find all the "Answers". For others this is not acceptable as a reasonable reason as to why we are here, Science does not offer an explanation for everything. It gives us understanding for most things.

Science has no stand point other than factual, and theoretical. For example, in Evolution, science has yet to determine our origin. Faith, gives us an origin in creationistic ways, a purpose for being and a higher purpose beyond our own life. Their is no debate between science and religion, the individual must debate this for himself.

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

I feel that Islam has given me the perfect union of Science and Religion, and has opened up so many opportunites by encouraging the use of scientific means to understand the universe we live in. This enables us to increase our certainty in faith.

 

[root]

Cool,

Then would you like have a stab at the question on how life may have arrived on this planet? Since your answer would be a blend of science & faith?

Regards

Root

 

[SpaceFalcon2001]

See, we can accept something fun like how HaShem is behind the evolution of life.

 

[Sephiroth]

There would be nothing preventing an all-mighty Creator from creating a system like evolution.

 

[root]

I agree...........

I subscribe to "Life" being brought here on the back of meteorites and\or comets, and I am open to a "genetic" material within the life "delivered". It would seem the Quran is open to this suggestion also after acknowledging that life "Probably" exists elsewhere in the universe.

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Then would you like have a stab at the question on how life may have arrived on this planet? Since your answer would be a blend of science & faith?

I find this article by To. O. Shanavas interesting:

Muslims believe that assigning a role for chance in the creation of the universe and its subunits--animate and inanimate--is anti-Islamic and a denial of God’s absolute control of the universe. Many Muslims, particularly Adnan Oktar, known as Harun Yahya, with the help of Christian creationists lavishly promote this belief through Muslim newspapers and magazines and create skepticism, especially among young Muslims living in the West. These young men and women studying in Western universities get little guidance from Imams at their mosques. Many Imams (in the West and the East) have little knowledge of science and its workings. When asked about the human evolution, they say it is a theory but they cannot render a scientific definition of the word. Imams, in general, are incapable of giving believable answers to our budding anatomists, embryologists, paleontologists, molecular biologists, physicists or chemists in our prestigious universities.


Many Muslim parents living in the West have scientific training, which they use in their daily lives. Unfortunately, they too are poor guides for inquisitive young Muslim minds. They tell their children that scientific theories could be proved wrong at a later time. They ask these intelligent young men and women to listen to their Imams and believe what they say. On the other hand they, not only encourage but also sometimes pressure their children to major in scientific fields. What an amazing contradiction! Encouraging the study of science but rejecting its discoveries!! People like Harun Yahya, using out-of-context quotes from scientific journals mislead Muslims, who are scientifically unschooled, into believing the fundamentalist Christian doctrine of the so-called “scientific” creationism. Furthermore, these Muslim cohorts of fundamentalist Christians lead young Muslims, studying science in American universities, into disbelief because they discover the flaws and half-truths in an imported “scientific” creationism.


Yahya and other anti-evolutionist Muslims reject chance events happening in nature. For them, the universe, with its animate and inanimate matter, is a clock and God is the clockmaker. The clockmaker set the clock in motion and it continues to tick away towards the Day of Judgment. This miraculous clock never slows down, never run fast and never stops. A perfect clock!! If the universe does run like a clock, then future events should be precisely predictable. Our whole lives and futures are predetermined and we have no freedom to actualize any possibility or affect any change in the universe. The universe is a mechanical clock whose function is predetermined in the past and all God does is watch it tick away. What we have is an unemployed god!!


What do we mean by chance? Simple meaning of the word is something that happens unpredictably with out discernible human intention or direction and in dissociation from any observable pattern, causal relation, or natural necessity. The events become unpredictable in two ways. They become unpredictable because we are limited by the lack of detailed and accurate knowledge at the micro-level. In such cases chance means that we are unable to determine all the micro-factors of the initial conditions that determine the macro-events. In another scenario, the observed event is the result of the crossing of two or more independent causal chains and we have no accurate information about the chains themselves or the beginning small events or about their point of intersection. Chance also means possibilities that are not visibly actualized. A universe without chance or possibilities exists only if creatures do not have the potential and freedom to steal or not to steal, believe or not believe in God, etc. In a deterministic chance-absent universe, humans cannot choose freely what they want but are forced to submit to destiny. In a deterministic universe, we can say Wahshi had no choice in killing Hamzah (ra) in the Uhud war because it was meant to be. Hind d. Utba, who paid Washsi to kill Hamzah (ra) and, who then cannibalized him, also had no choice in the matter because it was destined to happen. Muslim world is predestined to be ruled by oppressive regimes and their government sanctioned form of Islam. Chance, for the ordinary Americans including to see or not to see the true face of Islam, is irrelevant to their perception of Muslims at large as terrorists!!! Their perception about Muslims as terrorists is destiny too! In the first case, God becomes the ultimate puppeteer who pulls the strings on puppets such as Wahshi, Hind d. Utba to kill and mutilate one of the great companions of Prophet (pbuh)! In the second case, God is responsible for hiding the true face of Islam from ordinary Americans so that they see us as terrorists!!! [May Allah forgive me for depicting Him as what He is not] In a deterministic chance-absent universe, human choices and actions are useless because, not chance but destiny, transforms them into believers or non-believers! Therefore, those who reject the role of chance also reject free will. Humans, like robots, accept or reject God, not through their free will but, because they are pre-programmed to do so! No! Allah is not a puppeteer. He is the All Compassionate, Merciful and Just God, who presents to us with possibilities that allow us the freedom to choose right from wrong. We choose either kill or not to kill, to know or not to know the true face of Islam etc.


God, the Knower of all being (Al-Alim), knows that free will exists only where authentic choices exist. So, he offers us an open future with chance events and a multitude of possibilities that allow us to exercise our free will; otherwise, why should mankind and other creatures be held accountable for their actions, if they have no control over them?


Those who reject the existence of elements of chance in real life are transforming Allah, the Merciful and the Compassionate, into the tyrant that He is not. In Islamic history we observe Imam al-Hasan al-Basri (b.624) rejecting a deterministic universe. In response to a letter from Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan regarding the doctrine of a predestined universe, he replied: “Commander of the faithful; do not alter it or interpret it falsely. God would not openly prohibit people from something and destine them to do it secretly [emphasis added] as the ignorant and the heedless say. If that were so, He would not have said in the Qur’an, 41:40: Do what you wish. He would have said: Do what I have destined you to do. Nor would He have said in Qur’an, 18:28: Whomever wills shall believe and whoever wills shall disbelieve. He would have said: Whoever I will shall believe and whoever I will shall disbelieve.”


According to Qur’an, the current universe is our testing ground where our choices and actions generate data for presentation on the Day of Judgment. . Allah determines reward or retribution based on the data created by our choices during our life on our current universe. The Qur’an states: [Allah] Who created death and life in order to try you to see who of you are best in deed (Qur’an 67:2)” and “ Or do ye think that you shall enter the Garden (of Bliss) without such (trials) as came to those who passed away before you?…(Qur’an 2:214)”. It also reads: “On no soul does God place a burden greater than it can bear. It will receive every good it earned and suffer every ill it earned… (Qur’an 2:286).” Therefore, in the Islamic universe, human beings are free agents, given equal chances and the free will to do moral or immoral acts--equal chances to get to heaven or hell. What humans do matters on the Day of Judgment when God’s absolute justice wills prevails.


The fundamental purpose of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s (pbuh) authentic tradition is to make us aware of heaven and hell and of the moral or immoral decisions that we could take by the use of our free will in an unpredictable world. These sources are also decision- making guides to what actions God allows, prohibits, or considers neutral. He does not, however, determine or preordain individual choices and actions. We are free to choose from contrasting possibilities that are packed as information in each moment of the arriving future. We are free to actualize our choices into visible physical monuments of God’s creation. God holds us accountable if our choices violate the guidance that he revealed to us in the Qur’an. We are not responsible for conditions such as pain and suffering, fairness or unfairness, etc., that are inherent specific properties of each possibilities in the coming future. An analogy will better explain the point: A decides to throw acid on B, an innocent person. A is not accountable for the corrosive properties of the acid but for his decision to throw it to hurt human being. The creation of those characteristic properties of all possibilities including that of acid is in Allah’s domain.


In the predestined universe of anti-evolutionists, our thoughts and resulting deeds are preordained. If so, genuine tests or trials (on earth or Judgment Day) are impossible. An individual whose life is predestined will be arbitrarily rewarded or punished for his choices in the Hereafter Universe (al-Akhirah)! The Day of Judgment becomes a tyrant’s phony court hearing where pre-programmed machines, called humans, who have no control over their actions or decisions, are capriciously judged.


A predetermined universe conflicts with the truth in the Qur’an, the authentic traditions, and Islam in totality. A sound interpretation of Qur’anic truth will show that the acceptance of chance and unpredictability is a first step on the road to God because true believers accept responsibility for their choices in actualizing chances and possibilities that God sends their way. Without such freedom, humans cannot, through their effort and free will, find the Generous (Al-Karim), Merciful (Ar-Rahman) God. Instead, like robots, they are faced with a tyrannical force, which prompts their every move and punish them for what the tyrant programmed them to do.


Anti-evolutionist Muslims acknowledge the truth that Allah used the elements of chance and unpredictability in the historical processes that produced our contemporary nations and ways of life in which happy or horrifying unpredictable events are daily occurrences. If chance exits in the daily affairs of human beings and shapes their histories, how can we reject the role of chance in shaping our biological evolution? The theory of evolution is the history of life. Allah wants us to understand the physical and chemical laws of the universe so we can make rational choices and decisions. However, when He intervenes in our lives, He does not change existing physical laws as that may cause confusion among humans.


How did God design this miraculous universe? What are its mechanics? How does God interfere and answers prayers without violating natural laws? How does He maintain the continuity and directionality in evolution of the universe and life in the presence chance? Inshah, Allah, I hope to explore these questions in my book that is yet to be published.*

And the Origin of Life is discussed by a Muslim scientist here:
http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_51_100/origin_of_life.htm

Excerpt:

Earlier it was shown that the life began in the primordial soup of Earth's ancient seas is a questionable hypothesis. Yet currently it is the accepted wisdom in science that life began in the primordial soup and was the result of a completely random orchestration of events.* The justification for this view is that given enough time and enough accidental permutations of chemicals in such a primordial broth, it is possible that any complexity might have arisen.* Similarly, like-thinkers pointed out that given enough time, a large work force of monkeys with an equally large number of typewriters could sooner or later come up with all the works of Shakespeare.* Hoyle says this view is realistically impractical.* Mathematician David Osselton points out the basic mathematics behind the notion that given enough time a group of monkeys would eventually manage to type the works of Shakespeare may be simple and sound, but the sheer enormity of such a task makes it meaningless as an explanatory principle.* According to Osselton's calculations* it would take a million million monkeys roughly a million million years to type out only the name of William Shakespeare. And to obtain a paltry two lines from one of Shakespeare's plays would require 10*150 ( 10 to the power of 150 or 1 followed by 150 zeroes) strokes on a simplified fifty-character typewriter, or billions of billions of time more than the number of atoms in the whole universe. Osselton concludes, "The Idea that in the fullness of time random events will ineluctably come up with the right combination is less potent than has been commonly supposed."


*


Hoyle invokes the same argument: It is known that a living cell has a chain of amino acids, of which there are twenty different kinds.* The function of these amino acids is in turn dependent upon 1,000 to 2,000 highly specialized enzymes.* Hoyle postulates that for an enzyme to work by the amino acid chain, assuming its correct configuration in space, at least twenty to thirty key amino acids must be "right."* According to Hoyle's calculations, the probability of a thousand different enzymes coming together in just the right way over the course of Earth's several billion years of history to form one living cell is a staggering 10*40,000*** to 1.


*


Francis Crick, who shared a Nobel Prize for his work on the structure of DNA, likewise concluded, "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that* in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."


*


Further, on noting that random processes tend to destroy order, and intelligence shows itself most effectively in arranging things and producing order out of chaos, Hoyle concludes that the complexity of life indicates that the universe itself is intelligent, and that it is this intelligence, or hierarchy of intelligences, that first wrought the order in matter that resulted in living things.


*


Currently, it is known that the evolution of life on Earth is not a gradual process taking place in discrete steps but is most often an abrupt and sudden process, with new designs and advances in organisms appearing quite suddenly, and this is known as "punctuated equilibria."


*


Because of the similarity of processes between the universal intelligence and biological life on Earth, Hoyle concludes that perhaps there is a connecting chain of intelligence, extending downward from the intelligence of the universe as a whole to the intelligence of those hierarchies of software whose activities are indistinguishable from nature "by a series of further links to humans upon the Earth."

 

[root]

hhmmmmm.

Your own words and opinion would have been much better placed.

Earlier it was shown that the life began in the primordial soup of Earth's ancient seas is a questionable hypothesis.

A common misconception

Your "Links" was intersesting since it can imply that life originated somewhere else within the universe. It's a shame you never gave me your own thoughts on the matter without posting. Can I ask though, should a meteorite slam into the Earth and cause a cataclysmic event. Would you, before you die view this as "Judgement day"

 

[Chuck]

Can I ask though, should a meteorite slam into the Earth and cause a cataclysmic event.
Would you, before you die view this as "Judgement day"

It is directed to Ansar, but I'll have a go at it if you don't mind.

Well, if it is a judgment day than everyone will know in any case.

In general sense, no, because it doesn't necessarily mean the end of earth or human race. Even it is if it is not the judgment day it won't be the judgment day... it is possible that God won't establish the judgment day until the appointed time.

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Hi root,
it is possible that God will establish the judgement day through a meteor collision, but a meteor collision does not simply equate judgement day.

My own thoughts on the matter?
I think that some forms of life existed on earth and were created here before human beings came. They may have evolved, but currently I am skeptical of the evoloution of humans. I believe in it as more evidence arises, but until then, i wouldn't attribute evoloution to anything beyond non-human life.

I believe that adam was the first human sent down to earth. I don't believe in the meteor hypothesis.

 

[Khattab]

I think it will be 10 or so years before the whole theory completely collapases, it has already been rocked, evolution does occur though in some animals, and as we know one of Alllah (SWT) names/attributes is "The Evolver"

 

[yoshiyahu]

I think it will be 10 or so years before the whole theory completely collapases, it has already been rocked, evolution does occur though in some animals, and as we know one of Alllah (SWT) names/attributes is "The Evolver"

I highly disagree. While I personally think evolution is mostly correct, there are many famous skeptics (read: Hardcore Atheists) who believe in a form of young earth creationism!

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Could you clarify specifically which part of Amir's statement you disagree with?

 

[sonofadam]

I agree...........

I subscribe to "Life" being brought here on the back of meteorites and\or comets, and I am open to a "genetic" material within the life "delivered". It would seem the Quran is open to this suggestion also after acknowledging that life "Probably" exists elsewhere in the universe.

The key to evaluating the "life began in outer space" thesis lies in studying the meteorites that reached the Earth and the clouds of gas and dust existing in space. No evidence has yet been found to support the claim that celestial bodies contained non-earthly creatures that eventually seeded life on Earth. No research that has been carried out so far has revealed any of the complex macromolecules that appear in life forms.

Furthermore, the substances contained in meteorites do not possess a certain kind of asymmetry found in the macromolecules that constitute life. For instance, amino acids, which make up proteins, which are themselves the basic building blocks of life, should theoretically occur as both left- and right-handed forms ("optical isomers") in roughly equal numbers. However, only left-handed amino acids are found in proteins, whereas this asymmetric distribution does not occur among the small organic molecules (the carbon-based molecules found in living things) discovered in meteorites. The latter exist in both left- and right-handed forms.(Massimo Pigliucci, Rationalists of East Tennessee Book Club Discussion, October 1997)

That is by no means the end of the obstacles to the thesis that bodies and substances in outer space gave rise to life on Earth. Those who maintain such an idea need to be able to explain why such a process is not happening now, because the Earth is still being bombarded by meteorites. However, study of these meteorites has not revealed any "seeding" to confirm the thesis in any way.

Another question confronting the defenders of the thesis is this: Even if it is accepted that life was formed by a consciousness in outer space, and that it somehow reached Earth, how did the millions of species on Earth come about? That is a huge dilemma for those who suggest that life began in space.

Alongside all of these obstacles, no trace has been found in the universe of a civilisation or life form that could have started life on Earth. No astronomical observations, which have picked up enormous speed in the last 30 years, have given any indication of the presence of such a civilisation.

The theory that life on Earth was begun by extraterrestrials has no scientific basis to it. No discoveries have been made to confirm or support it. However, when the scientists who put forward the suggestion began to look in that direction, they did so because they perceived one important truth.

The truth in question is that a theory that seeks to explain life on Earth as being the result of chance is no longer tenable. It has been realised that the complexity revealed in the life forms on Earth can only be the product of intelligent design. In fact, the areas of expertise of the scientists who sought the origin of life in outer space give a clue as to their rejection of the logic of the theory of evolution.

One point which needs to be considered is that those scientists who look to outer space to find the origin of life do not actually make any new interpretation of the matter. Scientists such as Hoyle, Wickramasinghe, and Crick began to consider the possibility that life came from space because they realised that life could not have come about by chance. Since it was impossible for life on Earth to have begun by chance, they had to accept the existence of a source of intelligent design in outer space.

Extracted from 'The Collapse Of The Theory Of Evolution In 20 Questions'.

 

[yoshiyahu]

Could you clarify specifically which part of Amir's statement you disagree with?

If I read his statement right, Amir was saying that YEC (Young Earth Creationist) belief would dissappear in 10 years. If I misread, I apologize.