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Post by yahadj on Jun 23, 2008 22:35:06 GMT -5
Because Allah SWT didn't intend to create simple robots that follow preset algorythms/programs but instead he created a higher status creatures that have intellect and have ability to think and choose. Why Almighty God should create simpler creatures if He is able to create better ones?
We are born with a certain capacity or potential set by Allah SWT. He knows how much we can do. We with our free will may choose to use our whole potential or some of it. I believe Allah SWT would judge us according to our inborn capacity. Allah SWT doesn't give more burden than we can handle. Those that use their capacity to the highest extent will be rewarded and those who didn't will be graded with lower grades.
The life is about maturation/ learning and racing against time. Imagine we are born like empty glasses. We are required to fill that glass with good deeds within a certain time. Bad deeds only result in spilling out of the content of the glass. Once the death comes our time is over. Then we are judged according to the extent we filled our glasses. Those with full ones get highest reward than those whose glass is empty. Proving ourselves worthy is the goal.
Allah gives us the capacity and also the ability to realize it. Personal initiative and free will would direct our path in life. And Allah SWT knows all the possible ways we can undertake. He lets us pick one of them which fits us. He gives us a chance of existence, a chance of a journey to salvation, but we choose our destination. We earn our destiny we shall comsume its consequences...
PEACE
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Post by rusebg on Jun 24, 2008 15:24:26 GMT -5
This was a nice topic before Yahac appeared with his Allah whatever. He can ruin anything nice with his religious blah-blah.
It should be read that anyone who is not Muslim is not capable of anything because they missed the chance to be awarded with the capacity set by Allah whatever.
Now we have a Muslim boy-scout. Please note that according to Yahac, it is not what any person should have inside themselves (the inner will to do something good and behave properly), it must be given to those persons by Allah whatever.
Yahac, I guess you count your parents for nothing.
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Post by Allah on Jun 24, 2008 15:33:23 GMT -5
Yahac, I think I'm going to make you an angel. Gabriel here is impressed by your lack of free will and devotion to my cause. Giving you wings is the easier part....but what to do with that face....
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Post by yahadj on Jun 24, 2008 16:47:06 GMT -5
What is bad about the concept of God?
There is one and only God. Allah is the God of all. The Creator of all Universe. He is the God of Abraham, Moses, Noah, Jesus, Mohammed and all of us. Allah Almighty set the properties of each being- living or nonliving. He set the laws of physics. Everything in this Universe is under His command including you too if you can only know it...
Everybody has some potential of doing good. It differs from person to person but only Allah SWT knows how much you can do.
My parents are a part of "us". They are not the begining but just a ring in the chain of events leading to my existence. I thank them too for their part in my upbringing. But Allah SWT is above all in taking care of His creations. We depend on His Blessing and Mercy.
Elhamdulillah!
PEACE
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Post by albquietman on Jun 26, 2008 13:35:12 GMT -5
Nothing wrong with Yahac and the others that believe in God, but I think when it comes to find out what's destiny, life and the meaning of it and so on, coming up with God as the creator of all, it is just a naive approach of explaining, and just puts an end on the search for knowledge and leaves us ignorants.
If we look back at the history of religion, starting from the ancients greeks with their paganism, religion not only never encouraged the seek of knowledge, but on the contrary, he punished the ones that went too far according to them. Remember Giordano Bruno. Islam was a little more liberal than the christian counterpart in the beginning, but still it was a religion like the other ones, and like the other ones it couldn't get over the one creator that created us and our world in a matter of days, which is not only too naive, but insults our intelligence as humans too.
I admit it, it would had been nice that a supernatural being like God, to take care of us, to determine our destiny, our life and everything related to that, because our life would had been much easer. But unfortunately such a being doesn't exist, no matter how much the believers insist with their sophism to convince us...there is a saying, seeing is believing, so until I see the creator that they are talking about, they can't convince me and the others that do not believe to a creator that is created by them and lives only in their fantasy...
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Post by yahadj on Jun 27, 2008 21:05:16 GMT -5
On the contrary. The Truth about God require us to seek for His knowledge more. In Islam Allah SWT encourages His servants to look for the knowldge about Creation. Knowing that God created everything doesn't make you knowledgable about the way He did it and about the laws of physics. A true believer is required to look for the knowledge from Allah so he can use it for good deeds. You investigate the Creation and Allah reveals us knowldge about it as much as He wills. But he doesn't reveal knowdlege to those who never seek knowledge. BTW during the Golden Age of Islam it was the Muslims who were the world masters of science and technology. All others were living in darkness. As we became ignorant about our religion we became ignorant about science, too. In Islam religion and science never contradict, they go hand in hand... PEACE
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Post by albquietman on Jun 28, 2008 1:50:36 GMT -5
Well, I don't think that religion and science is a good mix. It is true that during the golden age of Islam science flourished, but that was it, we don't see such thing today. And since you say that there is one God for all the believers, being these Christians too, why the Roman Catholic Church invented the inquisition in the middle ages? Was that because the religion and science go hand in hand?
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Post by yahadj on Jun 28, 2008 8:14:20 GMT -5
Because the teaching of Jesus (PBUH) were twisted by Christians (starting with Paul), intentionally or unintentionally, so much that their religion got full of self contradictions and illogical dogmas. Science minded people were easily able to expose those. Since the Church was more about contol and material power it feared the destructive criticism which could have weakened their influence. That is why they have chosen to supress any scientific progress and any way of criticism.
This has nothing to do with God. This has to do more with deviated human beings. God Almighty hasn't promised Christians to preserve Bible from alterations, but He did for Qur'an. Unfortunatelly despite of that many Muslims still don't know what is inside Qur'an. Many of Muslims carry the label of "Islam" but there is no sound understanding of it inside. The understanding of Islam by Muslims of today is way to primitive to grasp the essence of the religion and the importance of science. As the number or rightously guided Muslims declined so did the science.
Chirstians had to get rid of the influence of the Church in order to achieve progress in science. But this was opposite for Muslims. As we went away from our religion we became more ignorant about everything.
PEACE
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Post by albquietman on Jun 28, 2008 11:54:23 GMT -5
How about God, why he didn't punish them since they didn't listen to him? Weren't more than 10 centuries enough for God to see that the church instead of guiding people toward prosperity, was suppressing them? If it is one God, as you say, why is he having different standards? Christians in order to prosper had to get rid of the church's influence, but muslims must be close to islam in order to prosper...well I haven't seen any country in the world that is religion fanatic and prosperous at the same time, it just doesn't work. What christians did was the right thing to do, because if they had not done that, you and me would had been riding a horses now instead of cars . If you want to see what the religion influence can do, just see what Bush is doing to USA and all the world. Bush in second term was elected mainly by the religion fanatics of the Midwest. They voted for him...
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Post by yahadj on Jun 28, 2008 16:32:29 GMT -5
My friend, the purpose of this life is not to make it Paradise. God had expelled Adam and Eve from Paradise till the day they and their offspings maturate enough to live in Paradise eternaly.
Our life on Earth is more like a challange, a testing that differentiates the good from the bad to seal their place eternaly in Hereafter.
If God Almighty wanted to make this place in perfect order he would have done that without problem.
This is place is maturation place for living beings, where you earn your final status. We are put on tests that are very tough sometimes. If we succeed we suceed for ourselves. Allah SWT doesn't need our good deeds. Any good deed done by us is a step closer to Almighty. He is omnipotent. He creates out of His Mercy.
Almighty has warned the humankind via his messengers about the purpose of this life and about the Afterlife. But humans were weak creatures and kept deviating from the path. But there was always rightous people to keep the faith alive.
The message is clear. That clearly shows that Christinity got deviated from the right path. If they want the salvation of God they should come the right path. And if Muslims fail in science and ethics they should realize their error of ignorance about religion and science and go back to their values, study hard, educate themselves and try to be best in every profession.
What about Israel. Very religous and very modern...
Sure, But don't forget the science is the heritage of all humankind. The inventor of cars was able to do it by using Arabic numbers, algerba and algorhytms in his calculations, writing them on a paper invented by Chinese. Every nation made contributions each of them as the rings of a chain. One led to another... God has rewarded the "apostate" or "heretic"(as defined by the Church) Christians with scientific knowldge for abandoning the twisted Pauline religion.
It is not coincidence that there are so many converts to Islam among Westerners nowdays. The message is clear to them. The message of Jesus (Peace be upon him) got lost by some bad intentioned priests/Roman collaborators. Islam clarified the message of God and restored the honorable status of Jesus(PBUH) as a mighty prophet of God. Qur'an is the final authentic scripture- the word of God Almighty.
PEACE
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Post by albquietman on Jun 29, 2008 0:37:22 GMT -5
I don't want to argue with you about God and his existence, since we stand on opposite sides. I respect your position and I never have seen religion as a bad thing or people that believe in God as bad people. The only thing that I always thought and still think is that religious people have found the easy way to explain things, God created and controls everything and case closed. On the other hand we people that do not believe try to find the reason behind everything...I can't say that we always are lucky, but at least we try One more reason that I can't argue with you about it is that every time I ask you a question you start God this and God that...it's easy to put someone on charge of everything, but I want an answer form you, a reasonable one...didn't God teach you that, or he told you that every time you you don't know the answer just mention my name? You can do that, but it won't work when you talk to an atheist . Israel prospered with the USA money. Every year, USA gives to Israel more than 5 billion dollars...all for free, our tax money, not God's money... I don't see any connection with religion here at all. It was us the humans that invented everything. None of what you mentioned fell from the sky, but was as a result of hard work by us humans for thousands of years, and trying to tell us that it was God that gave us the possibility to do that, is an insult to our intelligence as humans. I don't know anything about it since I'm not into religion but since you say it it is happening, I believe you, but I don't get something, if God is one for all, what's the point of switching religions? Can't he fix the Christian religion and save the believers the hassles of switching them? I thought he could do that since he has done everything else .
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Post by yahadj on Jun 29, 2008 9:54:49 GMT -5
First of all, I do respect our civilized discussion. I used to be an atheist before. I know where you stand and the issues with that. Believing in God for me came the other way around. First I went with scientific arguments and denied any other explanation including God. But later on I realized that science has an inborn limitation. Science explains how things happened but not why. And also it can't go beyond the point of Singularity. We are on the result side of the equation, the cause is on the other. So we can't cross that limit to know everything based on our senses and intellect.
Also believing in God doesn't close the case. Just gives a sound ground for science. Because event hough you know why, you don't know how everything was created. The details are missing. Thus you are commanded to look for explanation by science. And if you believe that everything is created by One Creator then you clearly can deduct that the scientific knowldge is the revelation regarding the science of the Creation can't come from any other source but God Almighty. This is not a new knowledge. It was there all the time but it is only now that we learned about it. Allah SWT reveals it to us as much as He wills. Scientific knowldge is a part of the test, too. Because you can use it for good or bad.
It is the other way around. Jews are the ones who have the financial power. US power is based on their financial institutions of Jewish bankers. Most of European Banks the same. Jews are the bosses of finance. They rule over Freemasons and Evangelists, thus politics. US should thank them for their contribution making them Super power.
Are you trying to say that we the humans invented our own intelligence. We deasigned our superiority in intelligence over any other living species? We were born with it. Some of us are born dumb some smart. Who has anything to do with that? Us humans. No. Not our parents. Two sublings could be with different IQ's.
Was it us who invented the DNA, the cell? No. Then who did it? The mother nature? Nature is the sum of living and non-living matter. If we with our intelligence can't invent a single cell what other part of the nature can? Evolution? Well, why evolution on the first place? What is the necessity for that. Just let us be stones and water... What the big deal... Natural selection? Why would nature would prefer the existence of a new evolved cell over the soup of proteins and nucleic acids. The cell is unstable, but the soup can stay there in same form for centuries if there was no bacterias to degrade them... You se no matter how much you try science can't answer the question "why all this drama?".
But I agree with you we deserve a credit for the scientific progress. If it was not some brilliant scientists to search for knowledge we would have been in miserable state. But we have to realize that the percentage of those scientists is still very low compared to the majority of the unscientific folk. Allah gives knowledge to those who search for it...
About fixing Christianity. He did it, by bringinf down his word by Qur'an. Islam is not a new religion. It is the religion of all rightously guided humans since day one on Earth. Islam is the religion of Adam, Eve, Ibrahim, Noah, Moses, David, Jesus and Mohammed. The religion is one. After the revelation of each message humans deviated and twisted the message to fit to their greedy needs. Thus Qur'an is the final message whose autheticity is preserved by Allah SWT.
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Post by albquietman on Jun 29, 2008 13:27:57 GMT -5
I do respect too our civilized discussion and your beliefs and mentality about how you see the world. I can't say I don't agree you at all and I understand the need of us humans to believe on something, on a set of rules being these made by us or by some divine being, if it really exists. That might work in sociology, when we need some rules, including morality, human behavior and everything related to them, but when it comes to science and technology I think it's not a wise thing to do, because, as I said, that puts an end on our search for knowledge. Of course we humans can't get the right answer for every question we raise, but that doesn't mean that our search for knowledge must end by putting in the picture some divine being claiming that he created everything. It's true that we don't know the details of everything, we don't know how the Universe was created (Big Bang is just a theory with no chance of proving it), we don't know the nature of a black hole and what's inside it, but before that we didn't know anything about our own planet, but we know now, and we know more than that, we know about the Moon, Sun, Mars and all the planets in our solar system, and our seek for knowledge is going on. I don't think that in any book of religion, being this Bible or Qur'an is written somewhere that someday God will send us to the Moon or Mars or some other planet. On the contrary , religion used to persecute these who even tried to think about it. Just because we don't know yet how life was created in the first place, and why should be life anyway, the answer of these questions is not by default God created everything. We as humans are armed with intelligence and logic, and thanks to them we are what we are today, and we attribute all our achievements to them. Using logic means that we need a logical explanation on every question that we raise or come up, and the one creator of all is not a logical answer...you say it is...that's where we disagree . Of course we deserve a credit for the scientific progress, like we have to give credit someone who saved his life just because he learned how to swim at some point of his life, and the other one who didn't, lost his life, but I don't think it was God that saved his life, because if God takes care for all the humans equally, why he didn't tell the one who lost his life to learn how to swim then? And yes, not everyone can be a scientist, because not all the humans are made equal, not because God made humans this way, but because everything else is this way, and we humans aren't an exception, since were are part of the big picture that is called nature...
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Post by yahadj on Jun 29, 2008 16:42:47 GMT -5
I agree that we must pursue our search for knowledge. But what I am saying is that science and religion doesn' tnecesserily contradict. That was true about Christian dogmas. But that doesn't apply to Islam. Actually it is our duty to search for knowledge. So let's make it clear. A good Muslim is supposed to contribute to scientific research. The only difference is that he doesn't have a suspicion about why the universe was created and by whom. The rest of the knowledge is left to us to find out and Allah SWT reveals it to the most worthy ones, not necessarily Muslims. Labels are nothing the core of the things matter... Atheism was a more valid phylosophical option when science favored the steady state Universe theory as the way of explanation of the universe. It was claimed that the Universe was eternal, didn't have a begining and an end, and because of that all kind of existace froms may happen out of simple chance. But since the Big Bang theory was proven to be more accurate than the Steady state Universe the scientific ground of atheism kind of dissapeared. If you have a universe that had a begining and will come to an end at certain point then you start ruling out the possibility of existance by chance. It doesn't make sense. And as required by our logic,things are supposed to make sense. If this is not Eternal then where is the eternity located. It must be somewhere else. Then the only way to make sense out of this whole creation process is to realize the Divine design behind this complex structure of all living and non-living matter. The way they fit into each other to form a harmony tuned with very sensitive balance. Like the whole thing is a living organism. But our role as intelligent beings in all of that Creation is still no different than a speckle in a vast desert. We are subordinate to the laws of physics and our intelligence is way too limited to grasp the essence of the whole process. Basically we are weak creatures but with somehow too high ambitions. Humbleness might help sometimes. Faith is based on favoring one out of two possible answers to the most impotant questions for any intellectual being- what is the meaning of life and what is my place in it? The answer is either related to the presence of Divine power ruling over te Universe or to no meaning at all. I choose to make a sense out of all of this while I am still alive. You prefer to not to make sense out of it yet but instead find about it after the Death comes. If nothing happens you would be right. No sense. Just an accident of the chaos. If that is tha case nothing happens to me either. Neither you get a medal. The nonsense comes to an end. You know it is a personal choice based on many factors. Some, simply follow the path of their ancestors, some choose to reject it and find their own explanations. Mine was pretty much both. My parents didn't believe but my grand grand father did believe to an extent he went to Mecca to perform his duty of Hajj all the way from Bulgaria, some 200-300 years ago... Probably is the expression of the ancient genes! Well, this one is probably the most personal answer a man can choose for himself. Thus, let it be the way he finds appropriate. As long as he is aware of all options and he chooses one of the consciously, everybody should respect that choice. Because after all everybody will be responsible for his own actions. PEACE
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