An intelligent argument Ayman.

Being a believer in One God, I find creationist arguments reasonably persuasive. But I’ve never considered them irrefutable. As much as the Earth seems tailor made to produce intelligent life, there are many arguments that can be used to refute it. Firstly we keep finding life in increasingly hostile environments on Earth. Life exists where temperatures are hotter, pressures are greater and in the absence of oxygen or water. It seems entirely possible that it exists through the universe in many different forms.

Secondly, even if we refer to the physical laws we have discovered, it is not certain that these are constant. Only a few weeks ago, an Australian scientist theorised that many of the anomalous findings in astrophysics could be explicable if there was an undiscovered variable particle. The mysteries would fall neatly into place if currently perceived Newtonian laws were variable across space rather than constant everywhere. This would mean that pockets of life friendly and life hostile environments exist throughout the universe.

Of course there are the traditional arguments against God’s existence which are also irrefutable. Why is it necessary for the universe to have been created while there is no explanation for God? Did he just float about in infinite loneliness for eternity before deciding to create our universe?

The only convincing arguments for God IMO (as I outlined yesterday) are based in perception of God available to many, and, the inexplicability of consciousness by materialism.

Thanks Ayman

enjoyed your latest quote. I followed up on your weblink as to the arguments for the Qu’ran being the word of God. Argument 1 was, “The Qur’an could not have come from an Arab as the Arabs, at the time of revelation, were linguists par excellence and they failed to challenge the Qur’an. They had even admitted that the Qur’an could have not come from a human being.” I thought that Mohammed experienced substantial resistance from his fellow Arabs for many years?

I have to say though that on the occasions that I have heard the Qu’ran read, it sounds hauntingly beautiful. Additionally, the revelatory events the Prophet experienced have a ring of consistency with the Bible and I can see no fundamental problems with God choosing to reveal Himself in a way that is meaningful to the Arabs of the 7th century and beyond, given their reluctance to accept Jewish or Christian interpretations at the time.

I still remain unconvinced that either atheists or creationists have a foolproof argument. For a time, I was convinced that the seemingly complete evolution of various complex organs could not have occurred by random natural selection but more recent arguments are more persuasive in that the components seem to have as their origins other parts of the body.

One of my son’s has completed neuroscience at uni. I have to say, I was blown away by the complexity of neurons and their operation. You will find it fascinating and miraculous despite the materialist bias of texts.

In the end, belief comes down to faith and experience of which I’m satisfied that God exists and is involved in humanity.

Best wishes to you

Thanks Daughter of Adam. I’ve had a look at Harun. It would be helpful if he referred to more recent science than the 1970s and 80s. So much has happened since then.

There are of course arguments against the independence of consciousness from matter. Most of them boil down to easily demonstrated degradation of mental capacity following brain injury or drug effects. These troubled me for a time but I now explain them by separating consciousness from intelligence. Thus you may suffer incapacity in function and memory while still remaining vividly “conscious” of your own existence. Where consciousness seems to disappear -for example through sleep or general anaesthesia, this is either because memories are not laid down or that the mind itself has been released temporarily from its location in spacetime to rejoin the brain when conditions allow / attract its return.

Very interesting points!

I must interject and state that humans certainly can pass or fail. They fail by failing to live by truth ;). These truths have obvious proofs for their validity, and plenty of messengers and revelations have been sent to confirm these truths. There is also our experiences, intuition, and logic and reason which all confirm the essentials of these truths (i.e. there is One God, the Qur’an is the Word of God).

I don’t think its accurate at all to say that Muslims find profound spiritual events to be untrustworthy. The very opposite in fact, as their are many accounts of powerful visions pious Muslims have had, in which they found answers to queries, or inspiration to face their struggles. Some even saw the future (i.e. instances of precognition).

As a Muslim, I myself fully accept these phenomena as evidence of a higher reality. However, it is difficult to use this as evidence for those who have not yet experienced them. Secondly, I would never use the “warm feeling” one gets during prayer as evidence either, because adherents of other faiths can have these kinds of feelings too. I would rather present logical arguments connected to sound premises, and thus valid conclusions. All of these would support Islam, after which I would know that my subjective feelings during prayer (i.e. warmth, and trust) all had objective value (i.e. the Islamic prayer was indeed how God actually commanded humans to pray).

However, if an individual has a dream of an alleged future incident they had no prior knowledge of or even concern towards, and then it comes true — then this has some pretty enormous implications. It definitely shows that the conventional understanding of consciousness is flawed. Near death experiences, if they can be verified, would have similar profound implications.

As for consciousness – I’ll be studying Neuroscience (and Neurobiology) soon, and until then I’m still just a layman in the field. However, based on my extensive reading, their are many different interpretations of consciousness and its implications. Some people are dualists and believe that their is an interdependence between the material brain/body and consciousness (the body being the medium through which this consciousness emerges or is observable). So any damage to the physical body would naturally affect the consciousness of a person (as observed by external observers). But, this is just one interpretation, and not necessarily one I subscribe to.

The Atheists who think that consciousness is merely a by-product of the material brain have a lot of explaining to do. This view isn’t the simplest view, and complicates things immensely. As per Occam’s razor, you should go with the best explanation, and this is usually the neatest, tidiest, and simplest one. In this case, it would be the existence of an All-Aware God. I’ll link you to another one of Hamza’s articles where he elaborates upon the “self”: http://hamzatzortzis.blogspot.com/2009/12/reflections-on-self.html

Nonetheless, the earlier arguments I’ve presented (i.e. the beginning of the universe, therefore requiring it a Creator etc.) all suffice to show the existence of God. Unless someone demonstrates a) the premise is false or b) the logical connections are faulty, then the conclusions are inevitably sound.

With Peace,

Ayman

Oh, I couldn’t agree more! But when people start bringing the overestimated science card to the table, it’s gotta be addressed. The problem these days is the average person has so many misunderstanding about Islam, and so many misunderstandings about science, you just get a jumble of strange beliefs popping up. As a muslim scientist, you could imagine how many times I’ve had to say “actually, that’s not what ___ says”

But, as you could probably tell, I have a fun time shedding some light on things. :P

Did they create life? No, but they could be on their way.

If they ever get there, please let me know!

As for innately “believing” in God (as the author of the article stresses), perhaps this will require some philosophical elaboration. After establishing this above concept of God, things make more sense. See, a Muslim is simply one who submits to God (follows His will or commandments). On the physical level, all humans “submit” to physical laws, we “submit” to cycles of consciousness, and so in this way (since God is the embodiment of the laws that govern the universe), we are submitting to His laws. It is only, in the spiritual realm, that humans are left to choose whether they will consciously “submit” to God.

In this respect, not just humans, but all contingent things “submit” and thereby “believe” (not always in a literal sense, but I think you know what I mean). Sorry for my verbosity! Take care!

Assalamulaikum my dear brother,

Thank you for your thoughts. Please allow for me to clarify what I mean by that statement. “God is the embodiment of the laws that govern the universe.”

What I was trying to stress here was that – yes, indeed the “created” laws which themselves are contingent are His creation, but He Himself is The Law. Why? What is a law in this context? Simply a being – a state of existence that governs, determines etc.

As such, I am not stating that for ex. Gravity is a law physically embodied by Him. Rather, I am stating that He is THE LAW – or the Being that determines all contingent things (as everything is contingent except Himself). Gravity would be entailed by a Unification – an absolute Oneness of the “supreme” set of Laws which cannot be divided or exist separately from one another – this is what we call Allah (in other words it’s like saying He is a unification of His attributes, you cannot label His individual attributes ex. All-Knowing as being Allah, as they are exactly that – individual attributes which cannot be separated from His entirety).

So this is what I mean by “Embodiment of the Laws” – as we as Muslims would say Allah’s “Mercy” governs the universe as it is supposed to (within the context of its nature), or that His “Knowledge” encompasses all – the past, present, and future etc. These are thus “laws” in that they determine what Reality is as opposed to what it is not (i.e. they define Reality as it is).

Reality would be different if God was different (however this is not possible, as He is absolute, beyond time and thus, THESE current state of affairs is the only one possible).

I understand what you are saying though, that it may yield some misleading connotations for those who may not grasp it’s implications.

However, with the above clarification, I don’t see a problem with the statement. If you still do, please let me know. My main reason for using that statement is to stress, particularly to Atheists (who accept that the physical and contingent realm is dependent upon laws), that God Himself is the ultimate Law and not necessarily something mutually exclusive from their idea that these contingent realms or states of existence are determined by laws.

In this way, it appeals to them more then simply saying “We believe in One God with no partners, who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Absolute” etc. As, unfortunately, people subconsiously associate all their misconceptions and stereotypes with this monotheistic concept of God (however baseless they may be). This is what I was referring to when I mentioned the anthropomorphic model. Stating that “He is not some anthropomorphic deity” is also often too vague for them – as they still conceive of Him as some large observer completely separate from the universe who merely intervenes sometimes.

As for being “the Law” – that description is perfectly in line with what the Qu’ran stresses. It must necessarily be absolute (unchanging otherwise it would also be contingent and incomplete – bound by time), All-powerful, All-Knowing etc.

If I have erred, I seek Allah’s forgiveness, this is simply my understanding which may very well be flawed. If so, please correct me brother.

Thank you! May Allah guide us.

Another response (slight variation, perhaps it will be clearer):

Assalamulaikum brother,

Thank you for the response.

I appreciate your thoughts, however, please allow for me to substantiate and clarify my position.

You see, the statement that “God is the Embodiment of the Laws that govern the Universe…” can be interpreted incorrectly (from what I intended). This appears to be the case here, as it does not mean that God physically embodies physical laws such as the law of gravity. Firstly, I think it’s important that we define what a “law” means in this context.

My use of “Law” here simply refers to a position of authority and control over an effect or contingency. In other words, it is merely a state of existence that determines, and sustains “contingent” beings. If this is the case, than of course Allah (swt) is “the Law.” You see, laws such as gravity may be a part of the creation, but it too is dependent upon a higher set of laws (it must be, if we claim that it is a “creation”).

This is all I mean – Allah is “the Law” (i.e. the unification of the ultimate set of laws that determine and sustain All). These “laws” cannot be divided, or viewed as “god” individually (as Hindu’s often do – they take one of the aspects of God, and personify it as a lesser god). In other words, this is just another way of saying Allah (swt) is a unification of all His attributes (i.e. All-Knowing, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate). They are in fact “laws” in that they determine what Reality is, as opposed to what it is not. More than that, they sustain this universe. If God was different, this universe would also be different. Of course, God could not be different as He is absolute (beyond time, and so has a definite nature).

None of His attributes can be, individually, considered to represent His entirety, rather we view Him as the Embodiment of them all, inseparable.

I used that statement to express our belief in Allah simply because most Atheists (who’ve seriously thought about this) already agree that the contingencies are dependent upon higher laws. They automatically reject anthropomorphic deities, just as we do. However, saying “we believe in One God!” carries many connotations with it that they have in-built defenses against. In other words, stereotypical thinking causes many to presuppose certain things about “God” when in fact they may not be the case at all.

This is why I brought up the “man up in the sky” fallacy – many Atheists automatically (perhaps subconsciously?) assume Islam’s “monotheistic” concept is simply a variation of Christianity’s over personified concept. And certainly, the pure and pristine Christianity (Islam) expressed the same concept – it has become incredibly tainted. As a former Atheist, I along with many of my philosophy mates agreed with this idea that we’d presume many things about “God” because of mainstream ideas not necessarily rooted in Islam, OR Christianity.

I pray this clears up the matter. I seek forgiveness if I have erred. Let me know what you’re thoughts are on the matter.