Why believe in God?
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Salaam,
It is difficult to start to believe in the unseen and what you cannot touch and feel in a normal way, and what science cannot prove. I suppose this keeps many people from believing and that a lot, actually the majority of believers, are mislead fanatics who do not have anything in common with the religion of God, making it look lame and something only a stupid person would believe in.
To be honest, this was what kept me from seriously embracing religion to begin with, but God opened my eyes despite this and I try to be a rational man of faith, and I thank Him for it. Although I had some old diary inputs which mentioned God in them, so I was not completely cut off from God even years ago, but I was far from as reverent and devout as I am today.
So to the question of the thread, "Why believe in God?". Well, I guess one who cannot believe in abstract things very well will have a hard time finding out about God and religion. It is hard imagining myself in your place (the critics), but I understand a little bit about how you feel about some things, so anyway, I think you have to first of all dare believe in something which sounds like a fairy tale to a starter. Put aside prejudices and think about the existence of the human race and some rational explanation to it and at least my mind landed at the existence of an almighty God in the end, after about a decade or so later after I thought about the creation and big bang for the first time I came to realize slowly that God existed.
I was not absolutely sure at first, it took me an additional few years to try my new personal thesis and try to challenge my belief and "feel" that God existed. I became very determined that God existed because my logic worked this way, I could not find it logical that the world created itself in its complexity and control itself too. Would be like a huge big bang, with an astronomical low amount of probability cause the world to explode into existence with everything knowing were to be to have life evolve. Sure Universe is big and life has not evolved just about anywhere, but yet the ultimate complexity of the world as we know it felt too overwhelming an experience to be just coincidence. Even by disregarding this fact, what would trigger the initiation of the creation?
Natural selection and human science was no enough for me, I adopt science a lot, more than the common believer, but I was not satisfied there. I have come to confess to myself that I am incapable of comprehending the vast power of the Creator Himself, I simply need to believe in my own inspiration and intuition and personal logic regarding what I previously mentioned about the world existing on its own. The probability law was not enough to ensure I could exclude God from the map.
God is simply beyond science and any measurable means, and it is because God probably wants it that way and by combining my own logic with religious scriptures this reinforced my certainty further these past few years. I believe it is a divinely created world for a purpose of testing the self-aware inhabitants of it and since it seems to be a test of being a good person and using the intelligence to find out that there is a God this all seems feasible to me now.
Sorry if I was a bit frank and casual in my approach in this post. I hope I did not hurt anyone, I was tired of today's earlier posts which were more respectful. I know this is how I discovered the Truth and it may be invisible to people and you may not believe even though my arguments and just want to argue on what I wrote. I did not write it to open a dialogue, so just swallow or leave it. It was my honest path to my own position as a Believer today.
Of course I could probably write a book about this, and it is probably what I am going to do too. Just this post was just a depiction of my life, and it did not cover everything, just hinting at why to believe in God.
God bless you all and try to think deeply upon existence that you may have your eyes opened.
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Peace all,
The story of the Blind men and an elephant (from wikipedia)
"In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement.
The stories differ primarily in how the elephant's body parts are described, how violent the conflict becomes and how (or if) the conflict among the men and their perspectives is resolved.
In some versions, they stop talking, start listening and collaborate to "see" the full elephant. When a sighted man walks by and sees the entire elephant all at once, they also learn they are blind. While one's subjective experience is true, it may not be the totality of truth. If the sighted man was deaf, he would not hear the elephant bellow. Denying something you cannot perceive ends up becoming an argument for your limitations."
Just food for thoughts peace
The creator is certainly beyond any and every example we may use to understand him, we may agree or disagree about his properties and attributes,but denying the creator's existence altogether is what I find nonsensical and illogical.
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The creator is certainly beyond any and every example we may use to understand him, we may agree or disagree about his properties and attributes,but denying the creator's existence altogether is what I find nonsensical and illogical.
I like this last part, we can argue about everything from Earth to Heaven, but we cannot argue the existence of God. It was the start of my religious path that I took some years ago, that I realized the logic in the existence of a Creator.
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Peace, Someone.
The creator is certainly beyond any and every example we may use to understand him, we may agree or disagree about his properties and attributes,but denying the creator's existence altogether is what I find nonsensical and illogical.
Can you please elaborate on this? How is it nonsensical and illogical to 'deny the existence of a creator', when modern science illustrates that it is possible (even plausible) for the universe to have come into existence without one? In order for disbelief in a creator deity to be nonsensical and illogical, wouldn't there have to be verifiable (and obvious) evidence of a creator's existence? So, where is it?
Peace,
Ahmad
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Salaam Ahmad,
I think he was meaning for those who believe in God. Please dear friend, try to read the whole context.
Atheists is another group of people and we (sensible people) accept this, if we are the right people.
And we believe that there is a God and we believe that you cannot verify God's existence because you cannot measure or comprehend Him, so what science says means pretty little too us.
Obviously, those who decided to believe, who are not hypocritical, choose to do it because they believe that there is an external kind of intelligence. And they believe that the creation of the Universe did not occur by coincidence.
You have to believe in the unseen to be a believer, so pretty much yes, it involves blind faith, at least to begin with, but you may or may not remain a believer after some time.
Dear Ahmad Bilal, I begin to realize your intent of being in here is just trying to convince people that there is no God, but of course you are allowed to be here. I just wonder what it is that makes you want to convince people that God does not exist, is it because you feel you do us a great service?
Or is it your hobby?
It seems to me as wasting your time, I feel I am wasting my time here and I try to strengthen the faith of those who already believe primarily. Of course go on do your work, those who are steadfast and reverent will never turn away an inch from their paths.
Shame everyone could not just start to see your posts as less provocative so that you got bored of being here rotfl
Anyway, I hope you see I did mean no harm, I was just curious. Of course I would love to have you here and if you benefit from being here then I am glad. I can see you are a great test for us, just like the user 'Stops' is on another level. No matter this, I hope I was still being respectful of your character even with these questions.
God bless you, regardless if you believe or not
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Peace, Someone.
Can you please elaborate on this? How is it nonsensical and illogical to 'deny the existence of a creator', when modern science illustrates that it is possible (even plausible) for the universe to have come into existence without one? In order for disbelief in a creator deity to be nonsensical and illogical, wouldn't there have to be verifiable (and obvious) evidence of a creator's existence? So, where is it?
Peace,
Ahmad
When you see a car, can you deduce then that there exist certainely a car-maker?
When you see such a univers around you, doesn't it telling you that there exit certainly a univers-maker? A creator?
Now can you tell me what science can make a car come into existence without a car-maker? Because I would love to have a Ferrari ... yay
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Peace, Man of Faith.
I begin to realize your intent of being in here is just trying to convince people that there is no God, but of course you are allowed to be here. I just wonder what it is that makes you want to convince people that God does not exist, is it because you feel you do us a great service?
If this is what you think, then you clearly haven't carefully read my posts at all... I don't have to convince people that there is no god. The lack of evidence for a god's existence inadvertently leads rational thinkers to believe that there is no "personal" god floating around somewhere in space. However, the derived nonexistence of a 'personal' deity doesn't mean that there is no god at all, as there are many meanings for the word "god". According to the bible, even you and I are 'gods' (Psalms 826)!
I'm definitely not against the belief in a god (or gods), as I never blatantly stated that no god exists. I merely said that there's no evidence for the existence of a supernatural god, who is also somehow 'personal' one who needs prayers and offerings, yet transcends us in every possible way; one who possesses a plethora of human attributes, but is identified as being unlike humans in any way; one who claims to be a universal god, but demands that we adopt Arab language and traditionalism in order to be pleasing to him, or demands that we travel to a designated place on Earth (e.g. Saudi Arabia) in order to receive his approval; one who is omnibenevolent and responds to the prayers of the righteous, but also (somehow) fails to alleviate suffering and eliminate evil; one who is willing to send 'prophets' and 'messengers' to ancient nomadic tribes, inscribing his commandments in books and on stone tablets, performing miracles and fantastic feats in front of the people - but does nothing of this sort in front of the people of our time, in the so-called "intellectual", "skeptic" and "technological" age, nor does he even provide some sort of modern historical evidence for the existence of these works in the past; etc. Again, this is a lot different than saying that 'no god exists', and if you think I'm promoting a variation of philosophical atheism, then you haven't been reading my posts.
Peace,
Ahmad
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Peace, Someone.
When you see a car, can you deduce then that there exist certainely a car-maker?
When you see such a univers around you, doesn't it telling you that there exit certainly a univers-maker? A creator?
Now can you tell me what science can make a car come into existence without a car-maker? Because I would love to have a Ferrari ... yay
There are many problems with this analogy, especially since you're trying to compare a car (automobile) to the Universe. However, for the sake of time, I'll only name a few...
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If we deduce that, as a car must have a designer, there must be a designer (or creator) of the Universe, then we also have to conclude that, as there are many people who work on the production and distribution of an automobile, there are also likely many gods who aided in the formation of the Universe. Correct?
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There is a clear disanalogy in composite functions between the Universe and a car. For starters, we know that a car is built for a purpose, which is likely to be driven, to make travel faster and easier. Yet, can you tell me what the 'purpose' of the Universe is? For what purpose was it supposedly designed?
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If we deduce that the Universe must have a creator, merely because a man-made object had a designer, then we need to correlate the existence of this 'maker'. For example, a car maker has parents, who had parents, etc. So, we can reasonably conclude that the 'creator' of the Universe did too! Therefore, we can't infer the existence of a creator, unless we also speak of the creator's creator, the creator's creator's creator, and so on. If someone (or something) had to create the Universe, then someone (or something) also had to create the 'designer'.
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Location plays a role in this established clause too. The Universe is generally recognized as consisting of everything in existence, composted of both space and time. So, where exactly was this creator located when he 'created the Universe'? Was he somewhere in another Universe? And, if so, who created that one, etc.?
Peace,
Ahmad
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Peace, Someone.
Can you please elaborate on this? How is it nonsensical and illogical to 'deny the existence of a creator', when modern science illustrates that it is possible (even plausible) for the universe to have come into existence without one? In order for disbelief in a creator deity to be nonsensical and illogical, wouldn't there have to be verifiable (and obvious) evidence of a creator's existence? So, where is it?
Peace,
Ahmad
If that's the case than we can drop the Newton's Law of Motion
Law III To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction
Therefore, the big bang theory you are referring does not qaulify fully
However Allah tells us how it has been done
Do not these disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were an integrated mass, which We (I, your God) then split, and from water We (I, your God) made all living things? Will they not believe even then?
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Peace all,
The story of the Blind men and an elephant (from wikipedia)
"In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement.
The stories differ primarily in how the elephant's body parts are described, how violent the conflict becomes and how (or if) the conflict among the men and their perspectives is resolved.
In some versions, they stop talking, start listening and collaborate to "see" the full elephant. When a sighted man walks by and sees the entire elephant all at once, they also learn they are blind. While one's subjective experience is true, it may not be the totality of truth. If the sighted man was deaf, he would not hear the elephant bellow. Denying something you cannot perceive ends up becoming an argument for your limitations."
Just food for thoughts peace
The creator is certainly beyond any and every example we may use to understand him, we may agree or disagree about his properties and attributes,but denying the creator's existence altogether is what I find nonsensical and illogical.
Salaam,
This is a helpful example. It seems to really identify that we think we find evidence of a certain kind - but only one who sees it for what it is can provide further elaboration. In terms of God, only God would be able to provide further elaborations about Himself. I don't mean only through the Quran.
God is constantly guiding, strengthing, loving, nuturing all of us all the time. Yes, some have less and some have more but its still relative. Some of the "poorest" people have their own richness away from material things. So it is God who provides the understanding and knowledge that each of us need to "know" Him. I completely agree, it makes no sense to deny the Creator's existence. In fact, I think I mentioned this to an atheist the other day. That is the problem is lack of knowledge, well if it's possible God exists then who else but God would be able to give you that knowledge? They treat a lot with so much skepticism so they seem to ignore things that a believer or person more open to it would find. I also mean in general about understanding themes in the Quran or ideas about God.
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Peace, Awaal_Muslim.
If that's the case than we can drop the Newton's Law of Motion
Law III To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction
Therefore, the big bang theory you are referring does not qaulify fully
However Allah tells us how it has been done
Do not these disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were an integrated mass, which We (I, your God) then split, and from water We (I, your God) made all living things? Will they not believe even then?
I apologize for the extended delay in replying to your post... Your position doesn't add up, especially when considered from a scientific perspective. If you make the determination of things falling in the realm of the law of motion, then we can reasonably assume that God falls into this category too. This is most applicable in the case of the law of "cause and effect".
We can assume that the Universe has always been here; it didn't have a beginning, nor will it have an ending. If this is the case, then that obviously eliminates the need for a creator deity to form it. If the Universe must have a cause (due to concepts of motion and thermodynamics), however, then we can make the same assumption concerning God; something must've caused him too!
If it doesn't make sense for the Universe to exist without a creator, then it certainly doesn't make sense for a god to exist without a creator either. If one of them must've been made, due to established (physical/universal) laws, then both of them must've been made. God must have been created by someone more advanced than him, right? That's a reasonable conclusion... But, of course, that doesn't fit in with your faith and preconceived beliefs. Therefore, you should keep your position within the realm of faith, rather than trying to equate it with science. Again, you can't scientifically prove the existence of God; you merely believe in him and his book. There's nothing scientific about that at all.
Peace,
Ahmad
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I believe in God because Logically, Morally, Philosophically and Scientifically God is.
- Cosmologically our finite universe had a begining and will have an end, thus an Eternal Uncaused Causal Agent must exist.
- Biologically, human beings are programmed like computers, that's right... DNA, thus a Supernatural Designer must exist.
- Psychologically, belief in God (aka Theism) is a "natural" cognitive instinct, meaning we humans believe in God(s) even if we don't get exposed to religious input from adults. Thus, disbelief in God (aka Atheism) must be the result "unnatural" indoctrination -X Ooh La La
ETC...
The best evidence we have in my opinion, is the Glorious Qur'an.
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Peace, hicham9.
If we examine your points, they prove to be immensely inaccurate. Here are a few brief examples
- Cosmologically our finite universe had a begining and will have an end, thus an Eternal Uncaused Causal Agent must exist.
- Biologically, human beings are programmed like computers, that's right... DNA, thus a Supernatural Designer must exist.
- Psychologically, belief in God (aka Theism) is a "natural" cognitive instinct, meaning we humans believe in God(s) even if we don't get exposed to religious input from adults. Thus, disbelief in God (aka Atheism) must be the result "unnatural" indoctrination -X Ooh La La
ETC...
The best evidence we have in my opinion, is the Glorious Qur'an.
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That concept is self-contradictory. If our Universe had a beginning (which is a hypothesized notion, by the way), then why must there have been an "eternal uncaused causal agent" to start it up? How do you know that the god that you worship wasn't formed by some type of "eternal uncaused causal agent"? If we can agree that energy and matter can't be created or destroyed, in accordance with the first law of thermodynamics, then why can't we conclude that the Universe IS eternal?
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Again, the same problem exists in this argument. If humans are somehow so complicated that we must've been designed by something (or, from your perspective, someone) more advanced than we are, then why can't this same concept be applied to God? Surely, there must be some person, such as a 'celestial' programmer, who designed God too! If everything has a beginning, then God must have a beginning too; and if complexity proves creation, then he must've been created by someone much greater than he is.
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That is pure foolishness. Nobody is born with a belief in a god or gods. Humans have the natural tendency to exalt their leaders and teachers, to the degree of personifying them as "god-like". That's the 'natural' inclination... Besides, even if you could reasonably conclude that theism is 'natural' (while atheism is 'unnatural', which is a nonsensical argument, you still wouldn't be able to establish the idea that monotheism is the natural perception of divinity. In fact, polytheism predates monotheism by several millennia! In addition, you'd never be able to substantiate WHICH god is the right one. The gods who've been worshiped throughout history are innumerable Zeus, Apollo, Saturn, Jupiter, Mithra, Brahma, Jesus, Yahweh, Amun-Ra, Ahura Mazda, Baal, and thousands of others!
The Quran says that Allah demands that people worship him alone, or they await a "severe punishment". However, how can we logically conclude that all of those other deities are 'false gods' (not real), while the god of the Quran is real?
Peace,
Ahmad
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Peace Ahmad,
Just for your information, some of the "gods" you mentioned is the same God, just different names, like YHWA and Ahura Mazda and Jesus is not a God, just a poor soul who obtained God status by "mistake".
If there are "apparent" polytheism it could be because they focus on different attributes of the one God.
I do not agree with all you say, oh brother, but you are a man of rational and logical thinking, and you view everything with a critical eye, which also is good to some extent. I have an open mind to your critical thinking and I try to develop new theories in my mind.
If God is eternal, how can he be created, unless of course he became eternal after being created.
You are right in your speculation that the universe might be eternal. It is not easily dismissed.
Edit By the way, belief in God might be an innate ability according to some new research studies. There was some other thread discussing this topic.
God bless you
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Peace, Man of Faith.
Just for your information, some of the "gods" you mentioned is the same God, just different names, like YHWA and Ahura Mazda and Jesus is not a God, just a poor soul who obtained God status by "mistake".
Not necessarily. The god Ahura Mazda is actually recognized as a dualistic god. He's not 'supreme', because there is another 'evil' god (Ahriman) who is equal to him, and the two gods are 'battling' for our salvation. This is vastly different from the concepts presented concerning Allah and Yahweh. Also, Yahweh is a cruel and dictatorial god, unlike Allah, who is merciful and kind. And, of course, Jesus was not a god at all; he was merely elevated to this position by those who followed him.
If there are "apparent" polytheism it could be because they focus on different attributes of the one God.
I absolutely agree with you, sir! I was only identifying them separately due to the modern renditions and perceptions of them. People often view them as separate beings, and this is why I classified them as such. In my personal view, however, they are probably separate attributes of the one (universal) deity.
Peace,
Ahmad