The existence of God

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Do you mean the hypotheses scientists make? Or would you say most atheists actually believe in imaginary things as well?

I'm sorry you feel that we atheists are arrogant.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to be a blanket statement. I understand that there are many atheists who would not fit the description, but from personal experience I've found that atheists tend to look down on others for what they themselves are guilty of, sometimes to a greater degree.

Yes, I was referring to the fact that atheists instantly reject God, while often employing the most bizarre explanations from the world of science-fiction to replace Him.

Many scientists do in fact make that prediction. You shouldn't think of science as a monolithic entity with an agreed response to questions about theoretical physics. It's an area that is being discovered, so all sorts of hypotheses are possible. If people put forward theories based on these hypotheses, let them battle it out and see which theory conforms most to experiments they can devise - survival of the fittest.

I'm not saying science is a 'monolithic entity' nor am I suggesting that there are no scientists who personally make that prediction. But we need to make the distinction there because it is very misleading to say that 'science predicts this while you say that' when in fact 'this' has no more scientific validity than 'that'.

Now you use scientists' multiverse predictions to support your argument, even though you've just described them as "speculation and fiction".

You're right I do. My point being that even the speculative explanations do not provide the atheist with a safe refuge from God.

Where does this idea come from, that non-believers must necessarily have a bad lifestyle?

Anything that does not function in accordance with its purpose is flawed. When I said that someone would have to re-adjust their lifestyle after discovering their purpose in life, this is logical as the validity of one's lifestyle rests on their purpose in life. I was not suggesting that non-believers live a 'bad' life morally, or anything. Allow me to illustrate with an example.

A student is handed a piece of paper by the instructor. Suppose this student paints a wonderful painting. Now, if the paper was given for an art assignment involving painting, then there's a good chance that his action was good. But if the paper was his Calculus test, there's a good chance he will find his test mak 'bad' to say the least.

Likewise, one may consider a car. It may be the most luxurious car ever designed, but if it explodes upon ignition, most people would consider it 'bad'. If another car is decked out with the most expensive gadgets, yet is powered by the pedaling of a severly exasperated driver, it is likewise 'bad'.

I've never seen the search for god compared to science like that before.

To quote the [former?] slogan of Apple: 'Think Different.'

Regards

 

[czgibson]

Greetings Ummbilal,

I am not going to attempt to argue the piont with you as i am tired and bound to trip up, so i'll just say have you read...

The Bible, The Quran and Science Dr Maurice Bucaill/ El Falah ?

I haven't read that book. Sounds interesting. I've seen a debate with a similar title, "The Qur'an and the Bible in the light of science", between Dr. Zakir Naik and a Western scientist with Christian leanings. The scientist hadn't really done his homework, so it wasn't too difficult for Dr. Zakir Naik to win the argument. However, as I've mentioned before, although I found Naik's recall very impressive, his arguments, beneath his rhetoric, were very weak.

You really do sound like you'd like to believe if only you believed it all, so to speak i hope you understand what i am saying!

I think you're right. I think it would be comforting and reassuring to be a believer. (I'm not saying these are the main reasons for your belief). However, I've been through the arguments, and while many of them are logically self-consistent, I see no reason to accept the premises of such arguments.

maybe you'd like to speak to my husband?
i'll pm you his e mail inshaallah.

I'm not sure. I'd prefer to keep my part of these discussions forum-based, I think.
Thanks for the offer, though.

if you'd like a copy of the above book let me know and i'll send you one inshaallah.

I'd certainly like to read it, but I don't want to cause you any expense. Maybe if you give me a link showing where I can buy it?

the Quran is indeed repatative but men are prone to forget so the point must be made in several ways several times and Allah knows best..

Yes. I find this repetition makes it quite difficult to read the book. It's more repetitive than any other book I've come across. Also, from what I can see, the repetition normally concerns assertions rather than explanations. (I'm thinking of phrases like "Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful." which recur throughout the text). Simply repeating that point will not bring it any closer to reality for me. It would be similar to me responding to every post with a stock phrase such as "god doesn't exist" - it wouldn't actually develop the argument any further.

As you can see, I'm still having difficulty reading the book, let alone understanding it, so thanks for your help.

Peace

 

[razzzy101]

gud gud

 

[root]

Hi Steve.......

Gravity- is the force of attraction between massive particles. Weight is determined by the mass of an object and its location in a gravitational field. While a great deal is known about the properties of gravity, the ultimate cause of the gravitational force remains an open question. General relativity is the most successful theory of gravitation to date. It postulates that mass and energy curve space-time, resulting in the phenomenon known as gravity.

Steve - What difference does a single universe vs. multiverse make in “chance” or make in creation vs. randomness?

Matter matters. The precise quantity of matter & mass within our universe is required for the manner in which it is structured and governed. With respect to "God does not throw dice", I used it in the context that einstien beleived everything followed a pre determined and fixed rules and was generalising throughout science. Yes, to be specific it was in reference to quantam mechanics but within the context of oreder and pre-determination.


Consider, The precise distance that the planet Earth required in relation to it's star to support life. If our planetory formation was a single entity then it would be prity hard to say it occured by random chance. Indeed supporters of Intelligent Design use this as an example of complexity and impossability that chance could occur. In recent times this has been proven wrong on the basis that we have an infinate number of stars most of which have planets, even if 0.1% out of an infinate number of stars have a planet in proportion to the star at the same precise distance as our earth then you already have trillions of planets just like earth "Not too hot and not too cold" (Just Right).

It is on this basis amongst others that has convinced the average Human that life must exists throughout the universe because sufficient oppurtunity exists for the chance to occur.

creationists and ID believers some of which still use the precise distance of earth to sun relation to try and prove complexity and thus God created it. Some have gone all the way back to the birth of the universe in an attempt to state that a single universe could not come about by chance because:

1. The gravitational coupling constant—i.e., the force of gravity, determines what kinds of stars are possible in the universe. If the gravitational force were slightly stronger, star formation would proceed more efficiently and all Stars would be more massive than our sun by at least 1.4 times. These large stars are important in that they alone manufacture elements heavier than iron, and they alone disperse elements heavier than beryllium to the interstellar medium. Such elements are essential for the formation of planets as well as of living things in any form. However, these Stars burn too rapidly and too unevenly to maintain life-supporting conditions on surrounding planets. Stars as small as our sun are necessary for that.

On the other hand, if the gravitational force were slightly weaker, all stars would have less than 0.8 times the mass of the sun. Though such stars burn long and evenly enough to maintain life-supporting planets, no heavy elements essential for building such planets or life would exist.

AND THUS the oppurtunity for too little, just right too much gravity cannot have the oppurtunity to vary. Thus an Intelligent Designer must have designed it (like they thought the earth did, but now nobody believes them)

However, with an infinate number of universes. Like planets the oppurtunity exists for the "just right" ammount of matter to occur by chance without a creator.

This is the answer to your question.

1. Why black holes are at the center of galaxys, well your question is wrong, it should be: Why do galaxys stick around black holes? Well just like our planet goes around our sun, the answer is gravity.

if you read what I said, i reffered to a super massive black holes. If Gravity is so weak why don't we just jump off a high building instead of base jumping with a parachute. We don't yet know if black holes form before or after a galaxy. We only discovered that galaxies have a super massive black hole in them several years ago.

2. What is on the other side of a black hole? Well a black hole is a spherical object, so on the other side of the black hole, we would see exactly the same, the backside of this black hole. But I suppose you weren’t referring to the 3dimensional “other side” but rather to Einstein-Rosenberg bridges (a.k.a. wormholes). Well these wormholes are hypothetical punctures in the 4dimensional fabric of space time. They could hypothetically be caused by two different black holes that enter each others strong gravitational field. So on the other side of that wormhole would be… you guessed it; another black hole.

The correct answer is nobody knows!

3. Where does all matter go that is consumed by a black hole?
Well a very small part of it is emitted in the form of Hawkins radiation. As for the rest of it, well by occams razor I would say it just stays there and the black hole grows bigger or denser. This isn’t actually as far out as you might think, it’s not like these black holes are sucking up that much matter. Remember that gravity is actually a weak force

Hawking Loses Bet; Changes Mind on Black Holes
By Jane Wardell
Associated Press
posted: 06:53 am ET
16 July 2004

http://space.com/news/hawking_bet_040716.html

 

[Abdul Fattah]

Gravity- is the force of attraction between massive particles. Weight is determined by the mass of an object and its location in a gravitational field. While a great deal is known about the properties of gravity, the ultimate cause of the gravitational force remains an open question. General relativity is the most successful theory of gravitation to date. It postulates that mass and energy curve space-time, resulting in the phenomenon known as gravity.

Yes I know all of this. But even with general relativity, the question remains, why does mass and energy tend to curve space time? All we can do is examine how it happens, determine a correlation between the presence of mass and the events it causes. Why have absolutely no idea as to why gravity exist. That’s the healthy way to look to science, as an examination of events, and a description of the usual behavior of events. Not as an explanation.

Matter matters. The precise quantity of matter & mass within our universe is required for the manner in which it is structured and governed. With respect to "God does not throw dice", I used it in the context that einstien beleived everything followed a pre determined and fixed rules and was generalising throughout science. Yes, to be specific it was in reference to quantam mechanics but within the context of oreder and pre-determination.

Exactly! Like I said he believed there was no such thing as chance and that even quantum mechanics which appeared to be random at certain times must also be following a strict cause and event.

Consider, The precise distance that the planet Earth required in relation to it's star to support life. If our planetory formation was a single entity then it would be prity hard to say it occured by random chance. Indeed supporters of Intelligent Design use this as an example of complexity and impossability that chance could occur. In recent times this has been proven wrong on the basis that we have an infinate number of stars most of which have planets, even if 0.1% out of an infinate number of stars have a planet in proportion to the star at the same precise distance as our earth then you already have trillions of planets just like earth "Not too hot and not too cold" (Just Right).

Your definition of chance is way of. If I pick one single card out of a deck, the chance that it would be the ace of hearts is 1 to 52, right? Now if afterwards, I put the card back, shuffle the deck, and pick a new card the chance will again be 1 to 52. I can repeat this process 52 times and my chance of picking the ace of hearts would still be 1 to 52. This is a general misconception among people. They figure if you do this 52 times, eventually you’ll have the ace of hearts once. But the truth is, a random process is not influenced by other processes. I can see how one increases his luck of encountering the specific card. But there are no guarantees. You could repeat this process 52 000 000 times and still not see the ace of hearts. The same applies to the stars. The presence of other stars, does not change the fact that the elegance of our earth seems to defy logic. But that’s just one mart of the elegance. The laws of science by their self are already a beauty of elegance by themselves.
On one hand, you cannot account things to randomness, because science shows everything happened for a reason. While on the other hand we are amazed by the elegance this universe has, singular or multiverse , all the same. Most people believe that Einstein actually lost his “edge” because of this. But as it turns out, Einstein wasn’t so far off in his quest to unify general relativity with electromagnetism.

It is on this basis amongst others that has convinced the average Human that life must exists throughout the universe because sufficient oppurtunity exists for the chance to occur.

That’s a wild guess. Have you actually studied the possibility of life on other planets? I wouldn't say sufficient opportunity exists. But then again, it would be a wild guess al the same. But regardless that, opportunity is an unrealistic word, in a world without chance. What you have is actions and reactions, not choices and possibilities.

creationists and ID believers some of which still use the precise distance of earth to sun relation to try and prove complexity and thus God created it. Some have gone all the way back to the birth of the universe in an attempt to state that a single universe could not come about by chance because:
1. The gravitational coupling constant—i.e., the force of gravity, determines what kinds of stars are possible in the universe. If the gravitational force were slightly stronger, star formation would proceed more efficiently and all Stars would be more massive than our sun by at least 1.4 times. These large stars are important in that they alone manufacture elements heavier than iron, and they alone disperse elements heavier than beryllium to the interstellar medium. Such elements are essential for the formation of planets as well as of living things in any form. However, these Stars burn too rapidly and too unevenly to maintain life-supporting conditions on surrounding planets. Stars as small as our sun are necessary for that.

On the other hand, if the gravitational force were slightly weaker, all stars would have less than 0.8 times the mass of the sun. Though such stars burn long and evenly enough to maintain life-supporting planets, no heavy elements essential for building such planets or life would exist.

AND THUS the oppurtunity for too little, just right too much gravity cannot have the oppurtunity to vary. Thus an Intelligent Designer must have designed it (like they thought the earth did, but now nobody believes them)

Like I said, elegance or even perfection.

However, with an infinate number of universes. Like planets the oppurtunity exists for the "just right" ammount of matter to occur by chance without a creator.

Like I said this doesn’t matter. Picking 52 cards would still give 1 to 52 odds. Even an infinitive number of possible universe doesn’t blow away the beauty of this universe that hints to a creator. If 10 milion printing presses or even an infinitive number of them would blow up. And only the letters of one of them would fall down on the ground thus forming the exact and complete text of the oxford encyclopedia, It would still defy our logic. It would be to amazing to ignore it as a “fluke” , just by the argument that there are other exploding printing presses that didn't act like that. In fact that would be exactly why it would defy logic, because it wouldn't be what we expect it to do. If every single exploding printing press would do this, we would find it a very normal, regular thing. In fact, I bet some people would even build up a scientific explenation for this so they could ignore the amazingness of this event.

if you read what I said, i reffered to a super massive black holes. If Gravity is so weak why don't we just jump off a high building instead of base jumping with a parachute. We don't yet know if black holes form before or after a galaxy. We only discovered that galaxies have a super massive black hole in them several years ago.

Gravity seems strong because it’s a collective force caused by an entire earth. But consider this. Even though the mass of the whole world would pull you to the center of the earth while you jump of a building. The Electromagnetive force, caused only by the few electrons of that small piece of pavement you land on, are more then enough to counter this force. So yes, gravity is a much weaker force then we imagine.

Steve: 2. What is on the other side of a black hole? Well a black hole is a spherical object, so on the other side of the black hole, we would see exactly the same, the backside of this black hole. But I suppose you weren’t referring to the 3dimensional “other side” but rather to Einstein-Rosenberg bridges (a.k.a. wormholes). Well these wormholes are hypothetical punctures in the 4dimensional fabric of space time. They could hypothetically be caused by two different black holes that enter each others strong gravitational field. So on the other side of that wormhole would be… you guessed it; another black hole.

Root: The correct answer is nobody knows!

Well of course nobody knows, but that’s because we haven’t examined any wormhole. In fact the whole theory of wormholes, is strictly theoretically. So we don’t know, because we don’t know if it is possible for black holes to form a wormhole. But If these wormholes would exist, they would be formed the way I described them, and then we would know. You’re building on a hypothetical situation, so stick with the hypothesis, otherwise you’re just dreaming out loud, and your question is sheer science fiction.

Steve: 3. Where does all matter go that is consumed by a black hole?
Well a very small part of it is emitted in the form of Hawkins radiation. As for the rest of it, well by occams razor I would say it just stays there and the black hole grows bigger or denser. This isn’t actually as far out as you might think, it’s not like these black holes are sucking up that much matter. Remember that gravity is actually a weak force

Root:Hawking Loses Bet; Changes Mind on Black Holes
By Jane Wardell
Associated Press
posted: 06:53 am ET
16 July 2004

http://space.com/news/hawking_bet_040716.html

Have you actually read the article? It confirms what I said, that there are in fact things escaping black holes.

 

[root]

Hi Steve,

OK. This is why I did not want to get into the numbers game!

Yes I know all of this. But even with general relativity, the question remains, why does mass and energy tend to curve space time? All we can do is examine how it happens, determine a correlation between the presence of mass and the events it causes. Why have absolutely no idea as to why gravity exist. That’s the healthy way to look to science, as an examination of events, and a description of the usual behavior of events. Not as an explanation.

My point is mass is related to Gravity. small mass universe equates to a totally different universe than ours. Hey, we have a variable that a single universe could not provide. With a single closed universe you effectively rule out variable universes. It had to work first time with no second chance, a mutiverse challenges that type of thinking, It's not a difficult issue to grasp.

Your definition of chance is way of. If I pick one single card out of a deck, the chance that it would be the ace of hearts is 1 to 52, right? Now if afterwards, I put the card back, shuffle the deck, and pick a new card the chance will again be 1 to 52. I can repeat this process 52 times and my chance of picking the ace of hearts would still be 1 to 52. This is a general misconception among people. They figure if you do this 52 times, eventually you’ll have the ace of hearts once. But the truth is, a random process is not influenced by other processes. I can see how one increases his luck of encountering the specific card. But there are no guarantees. You could repeat this process 52 000 000 times and still not see the ace of hearts. The same applies to the stars. The presence of other stars, does not change the fact that the elegance of our earth seems to defy logic. But that’s just one mart of the elegance. The laws of science by their self are already a beauty of elegance by themselves.
On one hand, you cannot account things to randomness, because science shows everything happened for a reason. While on the other hand we are amazed by the elegance this universe has, singular or multiverse , all the same. Most people believe that Einstein actually lost his “edge” because of this. But as it turns out, Einstein wasn’t so far off in his quest to unify general relativity with electromagnetism.

You wanted this, as I stated I did not want to get into a game of numbers.

If I had a red card and a yellow card hidden behind my back. And I randomly chose to show either the red or yellow at 1 second intervals to a crowd, the person correctly anticipating my random selection 1 million times without error is quite easy to achieve. This would not seem possible under your "Cards Chance" smoke screen. Do you care to explain this apparent difference of opinion!

Einstein Gravity Gravity & Electromagnatism with your reference to him being not so far off after being percieved as losing the edge only because he was looking for a theory of everything and not the unification of Gravity with electromagatism. perhaps readers may wish to fully understand the concepts being discussed by refering here (And steve I would love it for you to review each one) and then we may discuss specific chapters thus sing from the same hyme sheet and ensure we are talking the same thing.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

Bradband & Quick-time required to view these excellent miniseries. Each one lasting approx 7 mins.

At the moment I fear we are simply confusing the REAL scientific understandings with multiple universes.

 

[Abdul Fattah]

My point is mass is related to Gravity. small mass universe equates to a totally different universe than ours. Hey, we have a variable that a single universe could not provide. With a single closed universe you effectively rule out variable universes. It had to work first time with no second chance, a mutiverse challenges that type of thinking, It's not a difficult issue to grasp.

Well yes my point was that this difference in equation comes from a limitated understanding of what gravity actually is. Furthermore you’re totally missing the point.
The existence of different universes does not undermine the amazing elegance of this universe. You are thinking in terms of art. If an artist draws 100 paintings and only one is beautiful, then we would indeed call this a fluke. But first of all, we do not the other universes. And secondly, this kind of reasoning, seeing universes as different “chances to accomplish the same thing” is contradictive with science that show us every event follows strict causality.

If I had a red card and a yellow card hidden behind my back. And I randomly chose to show either the red or yellow at 1 second intervals to a crowd, the person correctly anticipating my random selection 1 million times without error is quite easy to achieve. This would not seem possible under your "Cards Chance" smoke screen. Do you care to explain this apparent difference of opinion!

In the event you described, the chance of purely guessing correctly whether you’ll show red or yellow will always be 50% Regardless of how many times you try. The difference with my example is only that due to the smaller number of possibilities, one is inclined to think that there is in fact a good chance of guessing it right. And while the odds are indeed more favorable for successfully predicting them, such an act would be described as pure luck by mathematics.

Einstein Gravity Gravity & Electromagnatism with your reference to him being not so far off after being percieved as losing the edge only because he was looking for a theory of everything and not the unification of Gravity with electromagatism.

Well as I remember he didn’t care so much for strong and weak force. So his idea of a theory of everything was just to unificate Electromagnetism with general relativity.

perhaps readers may wish to fully understand the concepts being discussed by refering here (And steve I would love it for you to review each one) and then we may discuss specific chapters thus sing from the same hyme sheet and ensure we are talking the same thing

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html
Bradband & Quick-time required to view these excellent miniseries. Each one lasting approx 7 mins.
At the moment I fear we are simply confusing the REAL scientific understandings with multiple universes.

Root, did you forgot? I was the one who first told you about that link in a different topic

 

[czgibson]

Greetings Ansar,

I notice your name has changed. What does this signify, if I might ask? I can only guess it's either something to do with marriage or qualifications. Am I even close?

I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to be a blanket statement. I understand that there are many atheists who would not fit the description, but from personal experience I've found that atheists tend to look down on others for what they themselves are guilty of, sometimes to a greater degree.

Fair enough, although the same could be said about many religious people.

Yes, I was referring to the fact that atheists instantly reject God, while often employing the most bizarre explanations from the world of science-fiction to replace Him.

What explanations from science-fiction have you come across in your discussions with atheists? Have I used any, for example?

I'm not saying science is a 'monolithic entity' nor am I suggesting that there are no scientists who personally make that prediction. But we need to make the distinction there because it is very misleading to say that 'science predicts this while you say that' when in fact 'this' has no more scientific validity than 'that'.

That's a fair distinction to make. I'm just always wary when someone makes a statement of the form "science predicts that...", since scientists may not always agree.

You're right I do. My point being that even the speculative explanations do not provide the atheist with a safe refuge from God.

Why not? To an atheist, after all, god is just one of many speculative explanations. To say that god is a more likely explanation than other speculations seems odd.

Anything that does not function in accordance with its purpose is flawed. When I said that someone would have to re-adjust their lifestyle after discovering their purpose in life, this is logical as the validity of one's lifestyle rests on their purpose in life. I was not suggesting that non-believers live a 'bad' life morally, or anything. Allow me to illustrate with an example.

Fair enough. You've obviously decided that people's purpose in life is to worship Allah. (Perhaps there are other things as well, but we'll stick to that one for now). Consequently, you see people who see no reason to do this as flawed in that respect. The question is, what is your evidence that this is in fact the purpose of human life? Is this something that can be worked out using logic applied to experiential data, or is it something you believe because you've been told it's true?

To quote the [former?] slogan of Apple: 'Think Different.'

It wouldn't surprise me. You can always rely on a big company to mangle the English language. The grammatical mistake in this instance is of course that the adjective "different" should be an adverb ("differently"), since it is describing a verb and not a noun. It may be the school holidays, but my capacity for pedantry knows no limits!

Peace

P.S. None of the buttons in my reply box are working (i.e. quote, italics, smileys etc.). Has this happened to anyone else?

 

[eyes_of_mine]

Greetings Ummbilal,
I think you're right. I think it would be comforting and reassuring to be a believer. (I'm not saying these are the main reasons for your belief). However, I've been through the arguments, and while many of them are logically self-consistent, I see no reason to accept the premises of such arguments.
Peace

CZ you do not seem like your average atheist, you seem to be a truth seeker and your mind is open .
If your mind was not open you would not be here debating with us, nor would you even pick up the Quran and try to read it, something most atheists refuse to do.
And you are very well mannered :thumbs_up
Keep looking your probally closer than you think, I have good feelings about you. :thumbs_up

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Sister UmmBiblal,

maybe you'd like to speak to my husband?
i'll pm you his e mail inshaallah.

Is your husband a Muslim revert? Why don't you invite him to join the forums? Even if he isn't able to post very often, we'd love to have him with us.



Hi Callum,

I notice your name has changed. What does this signify, if I might ask? I can only guess it's either something to do with marriage or qualifications. Am I even close?

:laugh: no, the name change has no real significance (my username differs from my real name anyway).

What explanations from science-fiction have you come across in your discussions with atheists? Have I used any, for example?

They inevitably come up when we start asking atheists questions dealing with the origin and purpose behind our universe.

That's a fair distinction to make. I'm just always wary when someone makes a statement of the form "science predicts that...", since scientists may not always agree.

My point exactly!

Why not? To an atheist, after all, god is just one of many speculative explanations. To say that god is a more likely explanation than other speculations seems odd.

Remember when I compared belief in God to theories in science? We always have to find a theory that is able to deal comprehensively with all the evidence, and able to provide concrete answers to our questions.

Fair enough. You've obviously decided that people's purpose in life is to worship Allah. (Perhaps there are other things as well, but we'll stick to that one for now).

The arabic term ibaadah is much more comprehensive than the english word 'worship'. The former signifies devotion, servitude, and intense love as well as the journey coming closer to God. These are all aspects which define our purpose in life, as explained later in this post.

Consequently, you see people who see no reason to do this as flawed in that respect. The question is, what is your evidence that this is in fact the purpose of human life? Is this something that can be worked out using logic applied to experiential data, or is it something you believe because you've been told it's true?

Good question. I do not accept any belief simply because someone tells me its true. The Islamic concept of the purpose in life is a comprehensive perspective that I have found is best able to deal objectively with all our questions, and is able to unite all our observations on life under one theory. The efficieny of the Islamic purpose in life in explaining the world has drawn many converts to islam, who now write in detail on the subject, such as the likes of Khalid Yasin and Jeffery Lang. The latter's writing is given in the following portion of my post.

Yes. I find this repetition makes it quite difficult to read the book. It's more repetitive than any other book I've come across. Also, from what I can see, the repetition normally concerns assertions rather than explanations. (I'm thinking of phrases like "Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful." which recur throughout the text). Simply repeating that point will not bring it any closer to reality for me. It would be similar to me responding to every post with a stock phrase such as "god doesn't exist" - it wouldn't actually develop the argument any further.

This reminded me of some of the writings of Dr. Jeffery Lang, a former atheist as well as a professor of mathematics, who converted to Islam. He writes about his initial reflections after reading the Qur’an, concerning its descriptions of the relationship between man and God. He puts us in his mind as he expresses the atheist objections he had to the Qur’an after reading it. I apologize for the length of the excerpt, but it wasn’t possible to provide the relevant discussion without the context necessary for it to make sense. So I had to type up a large portion of his reflections on God and man as well.

If God Were One of Us

If God were one of us, it would make things much easier, because then I would be able to understand Him, enough at least to see the connection between good works and divine intimacy. I can understand other persons because I share similar experiences, similar fears, hopes, dreams, wants, hardships, and joys. I can relate to them because we are the same basic being, only differing by slight variations. But God is not one of us. The Qur'an goes so far as to say that we cannot comprehend God, that God is "high exalted above anything that people may devise by way of definition" (6:100), that "there is nothing like unto Him" (42:11) and "nothing can be compared to Him" (112:4). It could not be otherwise, for how could human beings who are mortal, finite, corporeal, dependent, vulnerable, weak, limited, created, bound by space and time, understand one who is everlasting, infinite, non-corporeal, utterly independent, invulnerable, all-powerful, all knowing, all wise, Creator of all, transcendent.
If only the Qur'an had elaborated on God somewhere, gave us enough of a description so that we could fill in the lines. I did not come all this way only to find out that God is incomprehensible - an inscrutable mystery - and that for me there is no hope.
No wonder we humans tend to deify our own or to humanize God. Although this creates for me more rational dilemmas then it solves; it does lend God some tangibility. I guess I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted God to be utterly exalted above creation, utterly unlike the humanity I was part of, and at the same time reachable.
What a fool I had been, deluding myself into thinking that the Qur'an could somehow bridge the infinite gulf between God and humanity, that it could logically relate human suffering to divine intimacy. We hardly understand the human personality; how could it make sense of the relationship between God and man? It took reading the entire text to prove that I had been right all along, that there is no possible theological rationalization for human existence.
I was finally beginning to see clearly again. I was wrong when I just said that we understand our fellow man. We do not understand our humanity; we only know it through experience. I do not fully comprehend who I am, my motivations, my anxieties, my dreams, my emotions, my conscience and psychology. I do not grasp my humanity intellectually; I know it through my being human. Virtually all of my knowledge of humanness is subjective. This leads, however, to a seemingly inescapable conclusion. For if we cannot come at all close to experiencing divinity, which appears to be the Qur'an's position, then we cannot possibly come to know God in any real, meaningful way. By insisting that God is radically unlike creation - that nothing we know even compares to Him - the Qur'an has made attaining a relationship with God practically impossible. Although the author had campaigned brilliantly, had presented a literary and rational masterpiece, he was unable to present a complete and coherent explanation for why we are here. Yet he had nothing to be ashamed of, for he fell short where he and all others must inevitably fall short, trapped in the limitless void between God and man.
This was for me a hollow realization, and I felt no sense of victory whatsoever. For there were times in my reading of the Qur’an when I was so close to surrender, when the author’s words – his voice – nearly overpowered me, causing me to feel that only God could be speaking to me through this Scripture. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I was moved to tears on several occasions, that at times I truly felt I was in the presence of a tremendous power and mercy. These spiritual moments always took me by surprise. I would even try to resist them, to shake them off, but they were often too strong and intoxicating to resist, and my resistance continually weakened as I progressed through the text. There were moments when I was almost sure there is a God, when I felt the presence of one I always knew but had fought to forget. I didn’t know if I was any better or worse for having read the Qur’an, but I knew that I had changed, that I would never be so confident in my atheism again.
Even so, it was time to get on with my life, time to stop agonizing over the existence of God, letting it impede with my happiness. One of the main things that first attracted me to San Francisco is that it is a place where people live life to the fullest. After twenty-one years of schooling, I was ready to reap the benefits of all my work. It was time for me to start enjoying myself, I had the motivation, the opportunity and the means, I was young, single, considered good-looking, and had a good career. It was time to start having fun.

Say my Name

And then, not too long after finishing the Qur’an, perhaps a couple of weeks later, I thought of it. It came to me softly, unexpectedly – I think while I was watching a football game on television – as an afterthought, slipping into my consciousness,
It is not true that the Qur’an tells us very little about God; it tells us a great deal, but for some reason I had paid almost no attention to it. If I had just glanced at the beginning of a surah, or turned to almost any page, I would have found what I was looking for, if only I had read carefully, for there are thousands of descriptions of God in the Qur’an that link good works to growing closer to Him. Although I had read the Qur’an from cover to cover, deliberating on and analyzing almost every verse along the way, I mentally disregarded the Scripture’s abundant references to God’s attributes. Often used to punctuate passages, they occur typically in simple dual attributive statements, such as, “God is the Forgiving, the Compassionate” (4:129), “He is the Almighty, the Compassionate” (26:68), “God is the Hearing, the Seeing” (17:1). Collectively, the Qur’an refers to these titles as al-asmaa al-husnaa, God’s “most beautiful names” (7:180; 17:110; 20:8; 59:24).

​

Say: Call upon God, or call upon the Merciful, by whichever you call, His are the most beautiful names. (17:110)

God! There is no God but He. To Him belong the most beautiful names. (20:8)

He is God, other than whom there is no other god. He knows the unseen and the seen. He is the Merciful, the Compassionate. He is God, other than whom there is no other God; the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Source of Peace, the Keeper of Faith, the Guardian, the Exalted in Might, the Irresistible, the Supreme. Glory to God, above what they ascribe to Him! He is God, the Creator, the Evolver, the Fashioner. To Him belong the most beautiful names. Whatever is in the heavens and on earth glorifies Him and He is Exalted in Might, the Wise. (59:23-24).​

I had thought that the Qur’an used these divine names mainly as a literary device to crown passages and separate topics. That is probably why I for the most part skipped over them without giving them any serious thought. I now felt that I might have underestimated their significance and I began to jot down the divine attributes I could remember.

God is the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Forgiving, the Clement, the Peaceful, the Loving, the Just, the Benevolent, the Creator, the Powerful, the Protector, the Truthful, the Knowing, the Wise, the Living, etcetera.​

There, right before me, was the connection I sought, for this list largely intersected with and was the perfection of the one I had compiled earlier of the virtues that men and women need to develop. The implication was clear: Since God is the perfection of the virtues we should acquire, the more we grow in them, the greater our ability becomes to experience His being. The more we grow in mercy, the greater our ability becomes to experience God’s infinite mercy. The more we develop compassion, the greater our ability becomes to know God’s infinite compassion. The more we learn to forgive, the greater our ability becomes to experience God’s infinite compassion. The more we learn to forgive, the greater our ability to experience God’s infinite forgiveness. The same could be said of love, truth, justice, kindness, and so on. The more we grow in these, the greater our ability becomes to receive and experience God’s attributes of perfection.
An analogy would be helpful. I once had a goldfish and a magnificent German shepherd, and I now have three beautiful daughters. My gold fish, being very limited in intellect and growth, could only know and experience my love and compassion at a relatively low level, no matter how much kindness I directed towards it. On the other hand, my dog, who was a more complex and intelligent animal than my fish, could feel warmth and affection on a much higher level, and could therefore experience the love and compassion I showered on him to a much greater degree. Yet my daughters – and even more so as they mature – have the ability to feel the intensity of my love and caring for them on a plane my dog could never conceive of. This is because they have the capacity to know first hand through their own emotions and relationships deeper and richer feelings than my dog. Analogously, the greater our level of goodness, the greater our ability becomes to experience and relate to the infinite goodness that is God.
…Even if we are unaware of our experiences of the divine – even if we deny the existence of God – we experience His names nonetheless, but we remain deaf, dumb, and blind to their source. This is the greatest tragedy – the ultimate loss – according to the Qur’an, for we deprive ourselves of the means to grow closer to God. We come to know something of goodness, while closing ourselves off to the boundless mercy that originates it, which brings us back to the importance of faith in addition to good works.
…In the Qur’an, the story of Adam begins with the announcement that God is about to place a vicegerent (khaleefa) on earth, one who will represent Him and act on His behalf (2:30). It is presented as a momentous delegation, as a commission announced to the angels. It is presented as a momentous delegation as a commission announced to the angels. It is an honorable election for which each of us is created. When I first read this passage I was as dumbfounded as the angels were, for how could man, this most rebellious and destructive creature, represent God on earth? I, like the angels, saw only one side of humanity, the inclination to do evil, to “spread corruption and shed much blood”. Of course many men and women do not represent God very well. But our ability to do and grow in evil comes with the reciprocal ability to do and grow in goodness, and on the whole it seems that there must be more good than evil in the world, otherwise our race would have destroyed itself long ago. There have also always been persons who are great exemplars of goodness, who humbly dedicate themselves to helping others for love of God. This is the vicegerency to which the Qur’an calls us. More than just communicating a message or implementing a command, it means becoming an agent of God on earth through which others experience His attributes. Such individuals become filters, as it were, of the divine light, as God’s goodness reaches others through them. The more they grow in goodness, through their dedication, self-sacrifice, and learning, the greater becomes their ability to receive, experience, and represent God’s most beautiful names, and their experience of God’s presence in this life is only a small foreshadowing of what awaits them in the next. (Lang, pp. 93-102)​

To add to what Dr. Lang wrote about the divine attributes mentioned in the Qur’an, I think its also important to note that there is always a connection between the statement and the divine attributes that follow. The divine attributes a very important aspect of Islam, and the relationship between man and God.

I haven't read that book. Sounds interesting. I've seen a debate with a similar title, "The Qur'an and the Bible in the light of science", between Dr. Zakir Naik and a Western scientist with Christian leanings.

As far as the book by Maurice Bucaille is concerned, its a good reference, but its become a little outdated in the sense that arguments from Muslims and their opponents have developed beyond the material found in that book. Most of the books arguments (as well as others) can be read in the works of Harun Yahya, here:
http://www.miraclesofthequran.com/
The entire book by Bucaille is also available online here:
http://www.ymofmd.com/books/tbqs/default.htm

This book is also on the Qur'an and Science:
http://www.ymofmd.com/books/ocvr/default.htm

As for the debate, its not a 'western scienctist with christian leanings', the man's name is William Campbell, who is a Christian Missionary as well as a medical doctor. He wrote a response to Dr. Bucaille's book on the same topic - the Bible and the Qur'an in the light of science. After writing that book he agreed to debate with Dr. Zakir Naik, also a medical doctor, on the topic. So the debate comes after Bucaille's book in terms of the arguments between Muslims and Non-Muslims on Science in the Qur'an (hence my comment on it being outdated). Dr. Naik also wrote a book on the subject, available here:
http://www.ymofmd.com/books/qms.pdf

In arguing with atheism, I tend to rely more heavily on logic and the guidance given by the Qur'an, whereas Dr. Naik relies exclusively on correlation studies between science and the Qur'an - an approach which I feel is not entirely in-line with the Qur'anic method of Da'wah (inviting others to Islam). Nevertheless, Dr. Naik's debating skills are very good, coupled with his amazing recall - I still think his Da'wah contributions are much better in the field of Comparative religion.

It wouldn't surprise me. You can always rely on a big company to mangle the English language. The grammatical mistake in this instance is of course that the adjective "different" should be an adverb ("differently"), since it is describing a verb and not a noun.

I suppose you're right. Or maybe its not supposed to be a grammatical mistake because we're all supposed to be thinking different! lol

It may be the school holidays, but my capacity for pedantry knows no limits!

I hope you enjoy your holidays and I wish you the best when you return to teaching classes.

P.S. None of the buttons in my reply box are working (i.e. quote, italics, smileys etc.). Has this happened to anyone else?

If the problem persists please make a post in the Troubleshooting forum.

Regards

 

[root]

Root, did you forgot? I was the one who first told you about that link in a different topic

Yes I did forget, you got the link?

Well yes my point was that this difference in equation comes from a limitated understanding of what gravity actually is. Furthermore you’re totally missing the point. The existence of different universes does not undermine the amazing elegance of this universe.

Correct. I agree with this, multiple universes do not undermine the amazing elegance of this universe of which required just the right ammount of matter. Not too much and not too little. I am interested as to your explanation of why we appear to have the perfect ammount of matter that was required in order for it to exist in it's current form?

You are thinking in terms of art. If an artist draws 100 paintings and only one is beautiful, then we would indeed call this a fluke. But first of all, we do not the other universes.

No, I am not refering to an artistic representation. I am referring as an example to the types of universes created if mass was variable in their formations on the assumption they exist!

And secondly, this kind of reasoning, seeing universes as different “chances to accomplish the same thing” is contradictive with science that show us every event follows strict causality

No, why do you think it is to accomplish the same thing! what "thing" are you refering too?

In the event you described, the chance of purely guessing correctly whether you’ll show red or yellow will always be 50% Regardless of how many times you try. The difference with my example is only that due to the smaller number of possibilities, one is inclined to think that there is in fact a good chance of guessing it right. And while the odds are indeed more favorable for successfully predicting them, such an act would be described as pure luck by mathematics.

Yes, I agree and in the same context as you put it, And while the odds are indeed more favorable for successfully predicting them, such an act would be described as pure luck by mathematics.

Luck becomes mathmatically possible, for someone to correctly guess 112 times correctly the order of my random selection of two colours becomes mathmatically predictable, your cards remain unpredictable. How do you account for two random processes yet one is predictable the other is not?

Well as I remember he didn’t care so much for strong and weak force. So his idea of a theory of everything was just to unificate Electromagnetism with general relativity.

Yes, I agree and is it not true that Einstien tried to Unificate Gravity with Electo-Magnetism as a theory of everything? A yes or a no is adequate.

 

[Abdul Fattah]

Yes I did forget, you got the link?

You mean a link to the post where I first posted it? No it’s to long ago to remember the tread. I do remember posting it, brother Muhammad even send me a PB about it, and later posted a response with part of the transcript to point out certain things. It was somewhere in comparative religion…. That’s all I can remember

Correct. I agree with this, multiple universes do not undermine the amazing elegance of this universe of which required just the right ammount of matter. Not too much and not too little. I am interested as to your explanation of why we appear to have the perfect ammount of matter that was required in order for it to exist in it's current form?

My explanation? I thought you knew, I am in favor for creationism

No, I am not refering to an artistic representation. I am referring as an example to the types of universes created if mass was variable in their formations on the assumption they exist!

Well I didn’t mean that literarly of course. What I meant with that comparison is, that you cannot say that our universe is a fluke, that multivers or singular universe changes nothing in the amazingness of our universe.

No, why do you think it is to accomplish the same thing! what "thing" are you refering too?

Well I seemed to have read that between the lines, that you insinuated that if there would be many universes, the odd chance of our universe turning out so elegant wouldn’t defy atheistic logic. So that like saying, well it isn’t all that odd, because there were multiple tries, as if all dimensions of a multiverse would be attempts to accomplish the same thing. Like an unsuccessful artist who keeps on drawing until he hits a fluke.

Luck becomes mathmatically possible, for someone to correctly guess 112 times correctly the order of my random selection of two colours becomes mathmatically predictable, your cards remain unpredictable. How do you account for two random processes yet one is predictable the other is not?

It’s not mathematically predictable. It might be psychologically predictable though. You take a certain pattern which the other person recognizes. It’s possible to predict, but very unlikely. Honestly, If you saw someone making such a prediction, wouldn’t you start wondering whether or not there’s something else going on here? A scam, a routine, telekinesis … Basically you would sense that this defies logic.

Well as I remember he didn’t care so much for strong and weak force. So his idea of a theory of everything was just to unificate Electromagnetism with general relativity.

Yes, I agree and is it not true that Einstien tried to Unificate Gravity with Electo-Magnetism as a theory of everything? A yes or a no is adequate.

Yes, that was what I was saying. General relativity refers to gravity. So both statements are equal in contents. The problem he had with this unification, is that gravity is a lot weaker then Electromagnetism is, like I explained previously. But now, many years later, It turns out he was actually on to something. See, some believe that gravitons would be able to escape to different universes. The reason gravity is so much weaker, would therefore be caused simply by the absence of these escaping gravitons, and the theory can be unified after all.

 

[czgibson]

Hi Ansar,

You've confused me with your name change. You've changed from the truth to the just, if I'm not mistaken!

They inevitably come up when we start asking atheists questions dealing with the origin and purpose behind our universe.

Of course, when you ask an atheist about what gave rise to our universe all they can do is speculate. Nobody knows for certain.

My point exactly!

I'm glad to see we have a similar understanding of how science works.

Remember when I compared belief in God to theories in science? We always have to find a theory that is able to deal comprehensively with all the evidence, and able to provide concrete answers to our questions.

Right, survival of the fittest theory. The thing is, if belief in god is such a good theory (and I would dispute the claim that it is even a theory), then why is it not widely accepted among scientists? Sure, there are many theistic scientists, just as there are many atheistic scientists, but those who do believe in god do not do so because they find it to be a satisfactory theory; they do so because of personal reasons which often can't be articulated in any objective form. Because of this I believe that theism cannot really be compared to a scientific theory in the sense in which we normally understand the term.

The arabic term ibaadah is much more comprehensive than the english word 'worship'. The former signifies devotion, servitude, and intense love as well as the journey coming closer to God. These are all aspects which define our purpose in life, as explained later in this post.

OK - I would assume these all come under the meaning of the word 'worship' anyway.

Good question. I do not accept any belief simply because someone tells me its true. The Islamic concept of the purpose in life is a comprehensive perspective that I have found is best able to deal objectively with all our questions, and is able to unite all our observations on life under one theory.

The idea of uniting all observations under one theory is an attractive one, no doubt, but there are many questions I think Islam leaves unanswered. Plus, despite your demur, every Islamic text I've seen relies heavily on the argument from authority.

I apologize for the length of the excerpt

No need to apologise - reading is always a pleasure and never a chore.

In the first paragraph, Lang is already writing as a believer. He voices a familiar sceptical argument (which I've made here before) about how when it comes to god, we simply have no reference, since we are not aware of anything in our experience that is eternal, omniscient or omnipotent. He falls back on mystery, and leaves it hanging at this stage.

I guess I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted God to be utterly exalted above creation, utterly unlike the humanity I was part of, and at the same time reachable.

Right, he wanted god to be somehow detectable to human agency.

It took reading the entire text to prove that I had been right all along, that there is no possible theological rationalization for human existence.

As far as I can see, this sentence is, in a strict sense, meaningless. Theology is something created by humans, so we would not expect it to provide an explanation for human existence.

I do not fully comprehend who I am, my motivations, my anxieties, my dreams, my emotions, my conscience and psychology. I do not grasp my humanity intellectually; I know it through my being human. Virtually all of my knowledge of humanness is subjective.

These are typical teenage existentialist notions, which can always be relied upon to make boundaries and measures of knowledge uncertain.

Although the author had campaigned brilliantly, had presented a literary and rational masterpiece, he was unable to present a complete and coherent explanation for why we are here. Yet he had nothing to be ashamed of, for he fell short where he and all others must inevitably fall short, trapped in the limitless void between God and man.

I don't know what is meant by 'rational' here, but Lang has, once again, suddenly brought god into the discussion again, with no real explanation of why he feels it necessary to search for him. Plus, of course, it's hardly surprising that a complete explanation for why we are here was not found.

For there were times in my reading of the Qur’an when I was so close to surrender, when the author’s words – his voice – nearly overpowered me, causing me to feel that only God could be speaking to me through this Scripture. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I was moved to tears on several occasions, that at times I truly felt I was in the presence of a tremendous power and mercy. These spiritual moments always took me by surprise. I would even try to resist them, to shake them off, but they were often too strong and intoxicating to resist, and my resistance continually weakened as I progressed through the text.

So, essentially, he's been convinced by a strong and intoxicating voice - welcome to the world of literature! Although my own reading of the Qur'an has been limited, I've yet to find anything in it to persuade me that its authorial voice is anything other than human.

There were moments when I was almost sure there is a God, when I felt the presence of one I always knew but had fought to forget. I didn’t know if I was any better or worse for having read the Qur’an, but I knew that I had changed, that I would never be so confident in my atheism again.

I suppose I'll have to read the entire text - I'd love to have an experience that seriously challenged my atheism, just as I relish the chance of being proved wrong. I became an agnostic at the age of five, and a strong atheist after studying philosophy at university. Since then, I haven't doubted my position for a second. I suppose I've got a closed mind about this, which is why I'm eager to find something that will throw me off balance and force me to reconsider. It hasn't happened yet though.

Even so, it was time to get on with my life, time to stop agonizing over the existence of God, letting it impede with my happiness.

There's no need to agonise over it - it's one of the most interesting questions of all time!

He is God, other than whom there is no other god. He knows the unseen and the seen. He is the Merciful, the Compassionate. He is God, other than whom there is no other God; the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Source of Peace, the Keeper of Faith, the Guardian, the Exalted in Might, the Irresistible, the Supreme. Glory to God, above what they ascribe to Him! He is God, the Creator, the Evolver, the Fashioner. To Him belong the most beautiful names. Whatever is in the heavens and on earth glorifies Him and He is Exalted in Might, the Wise. (59:23-24).

I've always read these attributes as simple assertions, projections that mankind has cast onto an imaginary authority.

Lang's long final paragraph is essentially an oblique version of the ontological argument. He posits the attributes of Allah as being goals for humans to aspire to. This is nothing new, and does nothing to remove the idea that the ontological argument relies on wish-fulfilment, rather than any objective reality.

As far as the book by Maurice Bucaille is concerned, its a good reference, but its become a little outdated in the sense that arguments from Muslims and their opponents have developed beyond the material found in that book. Most of the books arguments (as well as others) can be read in the works of Harun Yahya, here:

I've seen Harun Yahya get some accusations of inaccuracy here on the forum - maybe that's only on certain issues. Certainly my own impression from looking at his website was that this was not someone to be taken seriously.

As for the debate, its not a 'western scienctist with christian leanings', the man's name is William Campbell, who is a Christian Missionary as well as a medical doctor.

Right, a Western scientist with Christian leanings - that's exactly what I meant!

In arguing with atheism, I tend to rely more heavily on logic and the guidance given by the Qur'an, whereas Dr. Naik relies exclusively on correlation studies between science and the Qur'an - an approach which I feel is not entirely in-line with the Qur'anic method of Da'wah (inviting others to Islam). Nevertheless, Dr. Naik's debating skills are very good, coupled with his amazing recall - I still think his Da'wah contributions are much better in the field of Comparative religion.

That's a good summary of how I feel about Dr. Naik - good debating skills, but he needs to realise that the correlation studies you speak of are not convincing in the slightest. Relying on them tends to sound ludicrous fairly quickly.

With regard to your own debating style, I can't fault your logic at all - it's just the guidance from the Qur'an [i.e. your premises] that I struggle to understand. I'm trying though, and you're an excellent guide.

I suppose you're right. Or maybe its not supposed to be a grammatical mistake because we're all supposed to be thinking different! lol

If the problem persists please make a post in the Troubleshooting forum.

It's all good now - must have been a one-off.

Peace

 

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Hello Callum,

Right, survival of the fittest theory. The thing is, if belief in god is such a good theory (and I would dispute the claim that it is even a theory), then why is it not widely accepted among [modern western] scientists?

You answer your own question in the following sentence, i.e. it is widely accepted.

Sure, there are many theistic scientists, just as there are many atheistic scientists, but those who do believe in god do not do so because they find it to be a satisfactory theory; they do so because of personal reasons which often can't be articulated in any objective form.

How do you know? Every believer in God I personally know, believes in God because they find no other adequate explanation for the universe.

Because of this I believe that theism cannot really be compared to a scientific theory in the sense in which we normally understand the term.

I think that if atheists did treat belief in God as a scientific theory, it would wipe out a lot of their objections. How often do we see atheists ask, "Prove to me that God exists" - yet we know in science that there is no 'proof', there is simply evidence used. The atheist wants to set unscientific criteria upon us and then accuse us of being unscientific for not fulfilling them!

The truth of the matter is that there is no evidence for atheism. There is plenty of evidence for God, and the first part that I discussed just now was the evidence for God in cosmology - that our knowledge of the universe leaves us with only one logical conclusion. But there is also other evidences for God which I plan to discuss here, inshaa'Allah, the fitrah being the next argument I will use.

The idea of uniting all observations under one theory is an attractive one, no doubt, but there are many questions I think Islam leaves unanswered.

Such as?

Plus, despite your demur, every Islamic text I've seen relies heavily on the argument from authority.

I don't know which texts you've read, but it all depends on the field. If you're reading a text on Islamic Jurisprudence, then it begins with the assumption that the reader has already accepted Islam. Its not going to spend time discussing the proofs of Islam.

With regard to the excerpt from Lang, keep in mind that I gave you his reflections after reading the Qur'an. Earlier in his book he shares his initial reflections as he begins the Qur'an.

In the first paragraph, Lang is already writing as a believer. He voices a familiar sceptical argument (which I've made here before) about how when it comes to god, we simply have no reference, since we are not aware of anything in our experience that is eternal, omniscient or omnipotent. He falls back on mystery, and leaves it hanging at this stage.

And then he completes the gap in his discussion on the divine attributes.

As far as I can see, this sentence is, in a strict sense, meaningless. Theology is something created by humans, so we would not expect it to provide an explanation for human existence.

Why not? What he means to say is that he [initially] foudn that religious theology could not rationalize human existence, it could not logically provide a comprehensive theory. Evidently, he found out otherwise.

Although the author had campaigned brilliantly, had presented a literary and rational masterpiece, he was unable to present a complete and coherent explanation for why we are here. Yet he had nothing to be ashamed of, for he fell short where he and all others must inevitably fall short, trapped in the limitless void between God and man.

I don't know what is meant by 'rational' here, but Lang has, once again, suddenly brought god into the discussion again, with no real explanation of why he feels it necessary to search for him. Plus, of course, it's hardly surprising that a complete explanation for why we are here was not found.

I don't really understand the point of your above comment. Lang was reading the Qur'an seriously, expecting it to provide a coherent explanation to support its principle of belief in God. Its not about him feeling it necessary to serarch for God, he's saying that since Islam is a theistic religion, he would expect the Qur'an to provide some coherent explanation bringing God and man into the picture - a task he felt others had failed at.

So, essentially, he's been convinced by a strong and intoxicating voice - welcome to the world of literature!

As you can see from the excerpt, that's not necessarily what convinced him. What convinced him, as he explains throughout his books, was the complete and coherent explanation that the Qur'an provided. It is exactly as I eexplained to you that we search for the most comprehensive theory that is able to expain all the observations and evidences adequately.

Although my own reading of the Qur'an has been limited, I've yet to find anything in it to persuade me that its authorial voice is anything other than human.

Answer is in the first part of the sentence. And besides, we don't believe that everyone who reads the Qur'an will be able to recognize it for what it is. There have been many orientalists and christian missionaries who have read the Qur'an, not benefiting from it in the least. But as the Qur'an clarifies right at the beginning of the second chapter, verse 2, it is guidance for a specific group - those who take the Qur'an seriously when they read it, like Dr. Lang and Dr. Brown, searching in it for a comprehensive and unifying theory behind the purpose in life, they will be able to recieve guidance. As I clarified in the very first post in this thread, God will only guide those who seriously seek his guidance.

I became an agnostic at the age of five, and a strong atheist after studying philosophy at university.

Two definitions:

agnostic |ag?nästik| noun a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

atheism |?????iz?m| noun the theory or belief that God does not exist. (Oxford American English Dictionary)​

Since you always mention that 'we just don't know yet' and you always talk about lack of evidence for God rather than evidence for the nonexistence of God, I don't know how you can claim to be an atheist and not agnostic. Atheism is possibly one of the weakest positions I've seen, since it relies on completely no evidence whatsoever but the mere existence of other hypothetical possibilities.

I've always read these attributes as simple assertions, projections that mankind has cast onto an imaginary authority.

Lang's long final paragraph is essentially an oblique version of the ontological argument. He posits the attributes of Allah as being goals for humans to aspire to. This is nothing new, and does nothing to remove the idea that the ontological argument relies on wish-fulfilment, rather than any objective reality.

You misread Lang's final paragraphs as an argument for God using the divine attribites, which they weren't. It was filling in the missing gap he had described earlier, the gap between man and God, how to know God, using the divine attributes. I gave you this exceprt to show you how crucial the divine attributes are to the Islamic theory behind the purpose of life - the divine attributes which you quickly dismissed as simple assertions. Divine attributes are part of a comprehensive theory, linking together various ideas in Islam and defining the focus of human life.

Right, a Western scientist with Christian leanings - that's exactly what I meant!

Well, your description seems to put a different emphasis on. I would more likely have said a Western Christian with science leanings.

I'm trying though, and you're an excellent guide.

Thank you. I've learnt much from you as well.

Regards

 

[ummbilal]

salaam alakum all,

hi cz Gibson

the book i mentioned,

the Bible the Quran and Science,

written by a frence scientist and translated into english.

http://www.islamicgoodsdirect.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/703

i read some again last night for the first time in a while, it compares science in the Bible(not accurate to what scientists have proven) and the Quran which is very suprising, very interesting esspecially the chapter about the pharoah who oppressed Musa as people.

inshaallah this will help you with your search for the Haqq(truth)

 

[Muhammad]

Greetings and everyone,

Sorry to interrupt - just 2 things:

1.

You mean a link to the post where I first posted it? No it’s to long ago to remember the tread.

Here is the link

2. Thought of the Moment

OK here is a quick thought that went through my mind when I read some of the things in this thread a few days ago...

It has been said that science provides evidence for its theories, but what exactly do we mean by 'evidence'? There are many things that we cannot witness or physically sense, as has been mentioned earlier, so we trust the results of experiments. For example, we haven't seen the particles of matter yet we see their random traces in a particle accelerator, hence we believe they exist.

Similarly, nobody has ever seen God, yet the results of His work are right in front of our eyes. What is the difference between the creation of the universe being an evidence of a creator, and proving the existence of non-tangible substances such as particles and forces?

Peace.

 

[Abdul Fattah]

Thanks Muhammad for backing me up. I'd give rep-points, but apearently I have to pass some around first

 

[root]

Hi Steve,

I have given much thought to what you have said. I can see why you want to imply that Einstien's attempts to unify electromagnatism with Gravity which stems from your strong convictions that Gravity is actually a weak force.

However this said, I cannot understand by what context you mean when you stated:

Gravity seems strong because it’s a collective force caused by an entire earth. But consider this. Even though the mass of the whole world would pull you to the center of the earth while you jump of a building. The Electromagnetive force, caused only by the few electrons of that small piece of pavement you land on, are more then enough to counter this force. So yes, gravity is a much weaker force then we imagine.

You stated,

Where does all matter go that is consumed by a black hole?
Well a very small part of it is emitted in the form of Hawkins radiation. As for the rest of it, well by occams razor I would say it just stays there and the black hole grows bigger or denser. This isn’t actually as far out as you might think, it’s not like these black holes are sucking up that much matter. Remember that gravity is actually a weak force.

Why black holes are at the center of galaxys, well your question is wrong, it should be: Why do galaxys stick around black holes? Well just like our planet goes around our sun, the answer is gravity.

Wonder if you could explain why in my diagram of a magnet directly over a paper clip does the (electromagnatism) fail to overcome the "Weakness" of Gravity and pick the paper clip up? keep it simple please.

Regards

Root

 

[Abdul Fattah]

Wonder if you could explain why in my diagram of a magnet directly over a paper clip does the (electromagnatism) fail to overcome the "Weakness" of Gravity and pick the paper clip up? keep it simple please.

Yes of course, sorry if I sound somewhat confusing by jumping from one point to another.

We know that the Electromagnetic force, the weak force and the strong force work with messenger-particels. The source of the force sends these particles, and when they hit a certain other object, they interact in a certain way, allowing the force to work.
Although it hasn't been found yet, everybody believes that gravity also has these messenger-particles. We've been looking for them quite a while now, and we already have a name for them, the graviton, but they haven't popped up yet. We do have a theory of what they would be like and how they would interact.

These messenger-particles are collective, that means the more particles, the stronger the force. Also all 4 forces seem to have quite some simularitys. That 's why Einstein thought they must have been caused by the same basic particle, and tried to unify the theories. The problem he faced though, was that gravity is that much weaker. Gravity does has it's strong sides though. Although being a lot weaker, it's reach is a lot stronger then that of other forces.

So why doesn't the magnet atract the paperclipp? Well there are only a small number of messenger-particles of the magnetic field attracting it, because most don't even make it that far, while there are a whole bunch of gravitons, caused by the entire earth, all with a big reach pulling the paperclip down.
What you have is quantity over quality.

What is the importance of all this? Well string theory suggests, that gravitons are actually a lot stronger then we originally thought, so they would be unifiable. The reason they "act" weak, is because they are not bound to our universe, they can escape the 11th dimension (the 11th dimension is a big membrane in which our other 10 dimensions are hold) into other universes of the asumed bulk.

This is all explained in the NOVA-link though ...

 

[root]

STEVE - So why doesn't the magnet atract the paperclip? Well there are only a small number of messenger-particles of the magnetic field attracting it, because most don't even make it that far, while there are a whole bunch of gravitons, caused by the entire earth, all with a big reach pulling the paperclip down. What you have is quantity over quality.

So the distance from the electromagnetic force is an important variable upon electromagnatism and should the paper clip be closer to the magnet then the magnetic force would overcome the power of gravity and pick the paper clip up? In summary the further from the source of electromagnatism the "weaker" it becomes whilst retaining the acceptance that electromagnatism is a "strong force".

Would you agree with this?