I think I no longer have any faith. I am in total despair.

[anonymous]

As the title suggests, I grew up as a typical muslim with parents who were extremely critical,judgmental and sometimes abusive, they were always distant and they even threaten to disown me from time to time. You see, I was always the goody-two shoes type of girl, I never got into trouble, never hanged out with the wrong crowd, always got very good grades and was the kind of person who'd turn to you their left cheek if you slapped them in the right one. However, my parents always disliked me and they still do to this day, I've gotten over them and they don't 'affect' me any longer because I truly feel apathetic towards them, after all they rejected me when no one accepted me, they made fun of me when I made mistakes, they told me time and again that I was the reason of their misery and they'd be glad if I weren't alive and so on but it's all irrelevant now.

As I became a teenager I got more interested in religion, I started reading about all religions indiscriminately and at that time nothing was more perfect in my eyes than Islam, there was no wiser and more peaceful man than it's prophet and the concept of god that it presented was sound and well articulated. I became a die-hard muslims out of choice and not just familial legacy, I was involved in religious practices that were beyond mandatory and I truly felt at that time that I was a believer. Everything made sense and everything was perfect, it was truly an opiate and relief from my horrible family life and the disgusting world around me. This was investment for a lifetime. Unfortunately that was an unfulfilled prophecy, so to speak, occasionally I had my doubts from time to time but I didn't pay much attention to them, reading the Quran was more than enough to tone them down and shut them completely.


Slowly and gradually, my faith has eroded and it reached a point where I don't have any faith anymore. There's no way to find out if god truly exists or not, and there's no reason to bother trying. Chances are even if he does exists, he clearly doesn't care about this world. He clearly doesn't support good since only evil prevails, and quite frankly it's a huge disappointment and utter waste if this random, chaotic, disorganize, extremely complex and unpredictable existence has any meaning or a supposedly omnipotent, powerful, 'just' and 'merciful' creator, isn't perfection supposed to generate perfection?. Life truly has no meaning, we only use religion to ease our sorrow or pain or to give us a sense of superiority over other species. Scientifically speaking the odds that there is a creator are very very low. Even if there is a god, there is no reason to believe he cares about us. Evolution has engineered us to rank things in order of importance to better our chances of survival. And presumably it entails that a being that possesses such great power has no need to do anything of the sort. It stands to reason that, to God, we are worth no more than the chairs we are sitting on. The Quran even states this repeatedly, that the world has no value or weight in the eyes of god and that's couldn't be any more indifferent to your existence and that either way obeying him or disobeying him won't grant you a place in heaven and that it's ultimately up to his likings whether or not someone goes to hell or not, which denotes implicitly that he truly is apathetic and has no interest in doing anything until judgement day arrives and he will then assign punishment to whomever he pleases or displeases and he's judgement is out of the boundaries of the criteria he'd previously provided. I also don't understand the eternal punishment or eternal reward methodology. I can't bring my faith back, now that I think of it it seems more like a phase than anything else. I feel disillusioned.

 

[Alpha Dude]

Sorry to hear of your problems.

What is your purpose behind posting here, if I may ask? You haven't asked any direct questions and seem to have already made up your mind. Seems you are more trying to make a statement and/or vent your feelings.

Anyway, it's 4am and I can't sleep so your post has my attention. Not interested in a long to and from but will just outline my thoughts in response to yours below in the hope that it helps you gain some direction.

To start with, I will post a hadith:

The Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said, “Allah the Most High said, ‘I am as My servant thinks (expects) I am. I am with him when he mentions Me. If he mentions Me to himself, I mention him to Myself; and if he mentions Me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly greater than it. If he draws near to Me a hand’s length, I draw near to him an arm’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.’”
[Sahih Al-Bukhari]

Note the first bold part. Its implication to your situation is that since you have a negative perception of Allah, your quests for affirmation of Allah's existence and the firmness of faith/iman settling in your heart is going to be null and void. It's not going to happen. Since you are already a Muslim and I presume wish to salvage your iman, you owe it to yourself to firstly try what your religion tells you to do. I.e. Whether or not you think it's impossible to 'prove' the existence of Allah, you should in your heart believe that he does exist and that Islam is true by default. Then, as per the second bold part of the hadith translation, if you pray 5 times a day in sincerity, avoid all sin, do many non-obligatory prayers and deeds and then make dua for guidance and a relationship with him (i.e. this is taking a step toward Allah), then for sure you will find it (i.e. Allah returning your step toward him by coming toward you with greater speed). Do this for a month at least, is my advice. Sincerity in your search for truth is vital here. If you don't ask Allah directly and with humility and a positive attitude and with true hope, then there is no point in doing it. You are asking for help on an Islamic forum (assumed from the subject where you say you are in despair), so you owe it to yourself to try this.

Chances are even if he does exists, he clearly doesn't care about this world.He clearly doesn't support good since only evil prevails, and quite frankly it's a huge disappointment and utter waste if this random, chaotic, disorganize, extremely complex and unpredictable existence has any meaning or a supposedly omnipotent, powerful, 'just' and 'merciful' creator, isn't perfection supposed to generate perfection?. Life truly has no meaning, we only use religion to ease our sorrow or pain or to give us a sense of superiority over other species.

One of the most basic lessons in Islam is that this life is a test. Naturally, in that case, evil and bad things have a purpose. So, no, your assertion that 'he doesn't care about this world' is only an illusion of yours. Perhaps you have this illusion due to the fact that you are looking at things from your own personal life perspective, where your life has been harder than most people around you - a narrow-minded, myopic view - and as a result shaytan has misled you into thinking Allah couldn't possibly exist. Everywhere you look, you only see evil prevailing. This is down to your mindset and attitude.

If you program yourself to believe it's all negative, then you will overlook anything positive, even if the positives are glaring and blatant. Evil does not prevail save when Allah wills it to and everything Allah allows to happen has a divine wisdom behind. E.g. child gets hit in the face by a football at school - your immediate reaction given your perspective would be to think life is all evil and unfair - but, suppose that due to the hit, he gets an x-ray and they find a tumour which is successfully removed - you would realise the wisdom of the relatively slight discomfort of the initial football hit in order to solve the bigger problem of the tumour. This kind of thing happens every single day and every waking moment. Someone of all the nearly seven billion people out there is experiencing or has experienced something which may seemed bad at first but later on was proved to have been a positive. The problem of myopic view is that at the first hit, we don't hold out hope of anything better occurring. We don't know the future but we are to trust in the wisdom and will of Allah.

Re: 'perfection supposed to generate perfection': i. I don't get your basis for concluding that the universe is imperfect, ii. according to what law is perfection meant to generate perfection, iii. we all have our own individual ideas of what perfection is, there is no universal agreeable criteria and there can never be so you are using your own myopic view again to define what you see as perfection, iv. this life is a test and therefore some imperfection is obviously going to be there.

Re: 'we only use religion to ease our sorrow or pain or to give us a sense of superiority over other specie': This is just a generalisation you are making. Some who have a half-hearted approach to religion may hide behind it to mask their pain and sorrow but a true believer in Islam does not do this. As for sense of superiority, know that atheists nowadays are equally if not more-so arrogant than religious people. Also be aware that it's haram in Islam to have pride (one of the worst sins) so anyone who feels a sense of superiority and looks down on others as a result is doing wrong.

Scientifically speaking the odds that there is a creator are very very low.

Scientifically speaking - how did you work that one out? I'd argue that the universe is so fine-tuned, organisms so complex, that the probability of it all occurring naturally and by chance over time is extremely improbable, significantly lower odds (as you put it), than a creator existing.

Evolution has engineered us to rank things in order of importance to better our chances of survival.And presumably it entails that a being that possesses such great power has no need to do anything of the sort. It stands to reason that, to God, we are worth no more than the chairs we are sitting on. The Quran even states this repeatedly, that the world has no value or weight in the eyes of god and that's couldn't be any more indifferent to your existence

As I mentioned above, this world is a test. The life in this world constitutes a day or half a day of the real time line. On the day of judgement, our eyes will open and we will realise that we've only been on the Earth for a very short period. Heaven is the ultimate goal. You mention yourself that the world is 'imperfect' and I agree in that there is injustice that occurs due to the action of other people (allowed by Allah as a test for us) and there are other trials put upon us by Allah. What you need to understand is that life here on this world is not meant to be utopia. That's what heaven is for. The world (a test area for us) compared to heaven is of course a no-comparison. It's only right that Allah categorises it to be of no worth. The sooner we realise this the better it will be because we then strive toward the hereafter.

either way obeying him or disobeying him won't grant you a place in heaven and that it's ultimately up to his likings whether or not someone goes to hell or not, which denotes implicitly that he truly is apathetic and has no interest in doing anything until judgement day arrives and he will then assign punishment to whomever he pleases or displeases and he's judgement is out of the boundaries of the criteria he'd previously provided

I don't understand on what basis you have concluded that obeying Allah would not grant you a place in heaven. The rest of your paragraph is based on that wrong assumption so cannot help you further on that.

Know that if you obey Allah, not just in the physical stuff like prayer, fasting, but spiritually by keeping your heart clean of pride, jealousy, lust etc. then in sha Allah you will be granted heaven. We as believers submit to the will of Allah and have hope in his mercy which is why we ask for forgiveness often (goes back again to the hadith I posted above of Allah being as we think him to be).

 

[anonymous]

What is your purpose behind posting here, if I may ask? You haven't asked any direct questions and seem to have already made up your mind. Seems you are more trying to make a statement and/or vent your feelings.

Anyway, it's 4am and I can't sleep so your post has my attention. Not interested in a long to and from but will just outline my thoughts in response to yours below in the hope that it helps you gain some direction.

Thank you foryour concern. I'm sorry you have to be up so late at night/early in the morning, well I guess it's probably 6 a.m by now. The reason I am posting this is because I am grasping at straws before I come to the final conclusion that I may very well be an agnostic or an atheist for that matter. But, not a hostile, aggressive one, there's a difference between atheism and anti-theism, in the case that my faith in god has completely collapsed, I would rather be the former than the latter. Then again since atheism and theism can neither be proved or disproved, I might as well just be an agnostic. I still hope I can rebuild what's damaged though, so that's why I'm seeking help.

The Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said, “Allah the Most High said, ‘I am as My servant thinks (expects) I am. I am with him when he mentions Me. If he mentions Me to himself, I mention him to Myself; and if he mentions Me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly greater than it. If he draws near to Me a hand’s length, I draw near to him an arm’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.’”
[Sahih Al-Bukhari]

Note the first bold part. Its implication to your situation is that since you have a negative perception of Allah, your quests for affirmation of Allah's existence and the firmness of faith/iman settling in your heart is going to be null and void. It's not going to happen. Since you are already a Muslim and I presume wish to salvage your iman, you owe it to yourself to firstly try what your religion tells you to do. I.e. Whether or not you think it's impossible to 'prove' the existence of Allah, you should in your heart believe that he does exist and that Islam is true by default. Then, as per the second bold part of the hadith translation, if you pray 5 times a day in sincerity, avoid all sin, do many non-obligatory prayers and deeds and then make dua for guidance and a relationship with him (i.e. this is taking a step toward Allah), then for sure you will find it (i.e. Allah returning your step toward him by coming toward you with greater speed). Do this for a month at least, is my advice. Sincerity in your search for truth is vital here. If you don't ask Allah directly and with humility and a positive attitude and with true hope, then there is no point in doing it. You are asking for help on an Islamic forum (assumed from the subject where you say you are in despair), so you owe it to yourself to try this.

Maybe I didn't word it properly the first time, I guess I just couldn't convey my thoughts clearly. Here's another attempt. It's not really the matter that I have an inherently negative outlook on life or things in general. I see this misconception about skepticism on religion being widespread. It doesn't necessarily follow that if one should doubt the existence of a creator to this universe it means that they're cynical and negative people, that's false. I do admit that ever since my faith has deteriorated I have become a little more inclined to question the dynamics of divine existence but that doesn't hold true for my personal life. You should believe when I tell you I tried, I truthfully,sincerely and earnestly tried. I prayed more than five times a day and I still do, I fast regularly in ramadan and also voluntarily. I sure do stay away from anything that's considered a sin in Islam and for a long time I spent hours in long prayers and many more in the mosque. I did everything written in Islamic scripture that guarantees prosperity in faith. Yet, I have no faith it's not something I can deny. It just collapsed right in front of my eyes, I feel empty regarding religion. But just for the sake of being sincere, I'll do what you say and see if anything changes in the time-length of a month. Who knows, maybe I'll retreat and have my faith back.

One of the most basic lessons in Islam is that this life is a test. Naturally, in that case, evil and bad things have a purpose. So, no, your assertion that 'he doesn't care about this world' is only an illusion of yours. Perhaps you have this illusion due to the fact that you are looking at things from your own personal life perspective, where your life has been harder than most people around you - a narrow-minded, myopic view - and as a result shaytan has misled you into thinking Allah couldn't possibly exist. Everywhere you look, you only see evil prevailing. This is down to your mindset and attitude.

But you don't really know, it seems that you are too sure of my outlook on life and perspective on things. I am actually, or so I'd like to think, very open minded, and I don't think my life has been harder than most people. That's an over-statement especially considering the 80% population of the world who live in far more destitute conditions than I do. I think there's another thing that's been miscommunicated, the fact that I acknowledge that evil and injustice prevail in this world is not the cause of my lack of faith in god. I understand that most people would respond that this life wasn't supposed to be perfect and that the world is a test for the hereafter. This initially can be accepted as a sound argument for faith, however, when introspected it seems more like an excuse. Mind you, I have no problem what so ever with holding myself responsible for what it's due. For instance, I immensely dislike it when an atheist or con-atheist for that matter throws a ridiculous question as: 'If god existed why isn't he doing anything about the starving children in Africa' in the air and claiming a victory title over believers because such a question is nonsensical and evasive in it's most basic form, primarily because the proposer presumably accounts a being he/she doesn't believe to exist as the cause of a negative outcome in events. So, the question in turn can be easily dismissed by responding " I could easily ask you the same question, why are *you* not helping those children in Africa". Therefore, as an example of what I previously mentioned I would like to stay away from emotional appeals and sentimental calls.

So, to get a better grasp on what I'm dealing with I'll outline some few points. Although I should inform you that you may find this mildly offensive, in spite of that I don't intend to attack Islam or god in specific. I feel that they are genuine questions and provided I'm given logical, reasonable and satisfying answers. I will gladly reconsider again my state of belief.
1. The concept of god in itself, is very vague and ambiguous that in order to define what god is and is not, the concept god has to then be put under a number of checklists to conclude collectively agreed upon definition of god. This is evident when discussing god in a religious setting, members of all faiths will refer to 'god' but each having their own latent definition on who or what god truly is. So basically, why is the concept of god so indistinct and unclear. If he created us all with a natural instinct to know that he is one, unique being than why is this notion not widely adopted on a global basis. In fact, if you consider primitive cultures which heavily rely on instincts more than anything else, you find that they're either pagans or non-religious, and faith particularly faith in one, omniscient, divine entity is not present in those areas. So , how can this gap be filled?.

2. Supernatural and natural order:
This one gave me a hard time honestly, because the concept of god entails that god possess supernatural powers, he generated and developed natural law, but he is not part of his existence. Usually this argument goes hand in hand with 'correlation equates causation' in religious settings and that there is cause or first law to everything and everyone. In simple logic, this could be easily accepted as well, after all no sane being will believe you if you told them that the laptop they have in front of them just came out of no where, it was just there and no one made it. But that's exactly the problem with such a premises because if you're suggesting that everything must've came out of something and something can't generate out of nothingness, then that ultimately begs the question of who created the first cause, and if this cause has a creator then who created the one before it and so on, and endless chain. In most cases, the final answer given by theists would be that there are exceptions to natural laws i.e the supernatural. Exceptions by default, are defined as conditions and laws that are exclusive to the creator and that rules can be broken by their maker, to put in simpler terms for the lack of better words. Also since god is neither an entity in the universe - he is beyond it, and is not bound by time or state- nor is he a mathematical object, it makes it nearly impossible which arguments can be certified as relevant to god's existence.

3. In retrospect of god's existence not being scientifically proven, I'm referring to the scientific method, usually a steps taken are to make a hypothesis, which here is the likelihood of god's existence, then different methods are used to testify and prove such premises. Namely, empirical methods or deductive methods, but as I mentioned earlier the concept is so vague and ill-defined that there's no way to find out if he exists or not. You may say that this where firm belief and certainty comes along but if god gave us a mind and logic to use, why would he then defy all laws of logic and demand us to have blind faith in him. It doesn't make any sense.

4. Regarding the fine-tuned universe argument. Well, I'm not so sure that counts as evidence that there's a creator. It could be easily argued in favor of a multiverse, or a self-automated totality. Maybe you should check this out:
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Fallacy/NoDesign.pdf

5. The perfection should generate perfection adage. Well yes, I agree with you on the point that there's no intact objective definition on what perfect really means. I see where I went wrong there so maybe I should restate it in another form. Ideally,a perfect being would be by default one that is void from flaws or impurities, one who is absolute and immutable,the alpha and omega, however, he is also described as infinitely 'merciful' yet he chooses to flood everyone in the story of Noah,including a mother an her helpless child, for later to be revealed that 'if there was an exception to those were allotted to drown that woman and her son would've been pardoned' as though he regrets what he's done. And then how could eternal, infinite punishment be assigned for a finite, and time-related event or situation.

Sorry, for the long post, these are my thoughts for now, I have a lecture to attend to shortly, but I'll be back. I appreciate your response.

 

[anonymous]

Anyone interested in answering my questions??

 

[anonymous]

Well, I guess since no one's really interested in responding..I was researching some tenets mainly in theism but I also came across this video which I think is very intriguing. It really made me more indecisive of my position especially regarding atheism. I think the two proponents against 'science refuting god's existence' did very well and presented very rational arguments especially the second speaker. The main problem is though, that they discuss mainly the idea of god from a christian position which is only inclusive to christian dogma. However, it's well worth the watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EUISty7_Vw

 

[Futuwwa]

If you think you can scientifically argue the existence of God, you are badly overreaching and should learn the first thing about the philosophy and epistemology of science. Presently, metaphysical naturalism is the reigning philosophical paradigm science is done based on. It's a working assumption, an assumed axiom, so if you think you have proven it to be scientifically true, you have committed a circular argument.

 

[Scimitar]

Scimi

 

[IbnAbdulHakim]

sincere question:


do you lack pious company (i mean sisters who when you see them you remember God type of sisters)?

maybe thats what is missing?

 

[Abz2000]

Very clever,