just realised I did not address the other point you made; “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 have to say that this goes beyond “warm feelings”. And the fact that other faiths and meditators experience these peak spiritual experiences points to a God that goes beyond our own religious boundaries.

My own experience some decades back, was specifically Christian. At the time, I was 19 years old and had become agnostic and toying with total atheism. Some Christian friends invited me to pray for forgiveness in Jesus name, asking specifically to receive the “Holy Spirit”. Well it was all gobblygook to me so I agreed with the specific intention of telling them the next day that their God and Jesus was rubbish and an empty promise. So that night, in the privacy of my own bedroom, I went through the motions of praying for forgiveness. I think I was even smirking. Nothing happened at first, so instead I thought what a step I’d made. Next I started feeling empty and that the universe was really a cold and empty place. Without really thinking I started praying again with feeling. I was desperate suddenly and in tears. As I completed the same prayer this time with sincerity (please Jesus take away my sins and send the Holy Spirit), I suddenly felt an enormous weight lifted from my mind. At the same time, a Presence filled my room and I literally felt like I was in an ocean of hot Love. I heard no words, but I felt an ASSURANCE that I was LOVED and not to worry any more – that God was with me always. Now my tears turned from despair to gratitude. My doubts were blown away for ever.

I still don’t enjoy Church much and dislike many Christian hypocrites. Christianity makes no sense to me but I have to honour the way God chose to reveal Himself to me.

I’ve also had a variety of psychic experiences but to me, these are simply a sign that our world is more complex and closer to a broader spiritual reality than we realise.

May you find God on your own path mate!

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

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

Mantiki, thanks for your response! Personally, fine-tuning of the universe is an argument I would appeal to instead of the apparent fine-tuning of the earth. The reasoning being, the fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe itself is what leads to this specific configuration of the universe. Hamza Andreas Tzortzis elaborates upon this here: http://hamzatzortzis.blogspot.com/2010/05/argument-from-design-video-introduction.html

Essentially, he argues that the fine-tuning is either due to: a) physical necessity b) chance or c) design (i.e. their was intent behind it all, and so it’s not simply a blind, mechanical and impersonal process/reality which is the basis of this universe).

Furthermore, the argument from fine-tuning isn’t the only argument. There is also the argument developed by brilliant Muslim theologians and philosophers related to the necessity of a beginning of this universe, due to the fact that there are changes we observe, and specification of created things. If the universe was eternal, then there would be an infinite set of past events and changes. However, had this been true you would run into the problem of an infinite regression which is an impossibility. Even the famous mathematician David Hilbert stated that an actual infinity. An actual Infinite in this context refers to “a set which has an infinite number of definite and discreet finite particulars” (William Lane Craig). I’m not sure if I’m allowed to link to the specific Shaykh’s site (whom I have been linking to), however, if I get permission I can point you to his article which elaborates upon these arguments. So, based on this we know that the universe must have had a beginning.

If it had a beginning, then it must have been brought into existence by something separate from it (this separation doesn’t have to mean a physical or spatial sort of separation, as there was not material or physical reality beyond the universe; it simply means something that is not the universe). By universe, I mean the sum of all matter, or perhaps a better definition would be: everything other than Allah/God.

Furthermore, there are also convincing arguments for why this cause of the universe must be Aware or “Conscious” (i.e. not simply mechanical or impersonal, but rather a Being that has a Will). I won’t get into those here unless requested.

In addition, you have solid arguments for the validity of the Qur’an which can be verified through its falsification test (i.e. the challenge that it issues). The Qur’an’s inimitable nature verifies its source (i.e. it could not have come from a human being). For a detailed set of arguments, visit this link: http://www.theinimitablequran.com/

The objectivity of this argument is also elaborated upon here: http://hamzatzortzis.blogspot.com/2009/01/questions-how-does-qurans-uniqueness.html

This also demonstrates the truthfulness of the Prophet’s claim to Prophet hood.

As for the objections you’ve raised as examples of potential counter arguments, I’ll address them:

1) I’ve already elaborated upon why its necessary for the universe to require an explanation – because it doesn’t explain itself. It is only intrinsically possible in existence (i.e. its existence is not necessary as it has a beginning, and it can cease to exist). God does not require an explanation. This is like asking who created God? It’s a logical fallacy. If God is defined as intrinsically necessary, and His necessity has been established to be logically necessary, than there is no reason why He needs an explanation. This is also in harmony with Occam’s razor which seeks to eliminate explanations which themselves require explanations beyond necessity. The simplest option is the way to go. God also has no beginning which is why He needs no explanation.

2) “Did He just float about in infinite loneliness before deciding to create…”
Firstly, God does not “float”, as that is a concept relevant to physical bodies/objects within a space where you can float – but I get that you may mean this as a figure of speech ;). Secondly, you’re assuming that there is time as we experience it for God. We experience time in sequential order, passing by. Who’s to say this is how it is for God? This is assuming a linear version of time, however, in basic 11th grade physics you learn that even within our own universe time relative as shown by Einstein’s equations. For an elaboration of this, refer to the twin paradox model in physics. Finally, God’s “choices” and “decisions” thereby do not come into existence from a point of non-existence (i.e. they do not have a beginning in time). In simplest terms, there was no point during which God was without the knowledge of creating (i.e. He is absolutely all-knowing).

Inshallah, I’ll be studying neuroscience in university next year. Why? You pointed out one important reason: the materialistic world understands very little about consciousness, far less than we should by now (had scientists freed themselves from refraining from scientific “taboos” and their biases).

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.

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.