i tried making athiests belive in God

[albanianman]

on some forum about sneakers i made a thread saying athiests wake up.i showed how Allah existed.and they started saying bad stuff about me. so i gave up.is this a good or bad thing i did

 

[albanianman]

thank you alot.i will check it out

 

[duncan_bayne]

It is usually futile to try to call atheists to Islam because atheists are arrogant in their thought process as they replace God with themselves.

Do you think that it is possible to prove the existence of God, or do you think that the existence of God is a matter of faith (that is, that it must be accepted without rational evidence)?

I'm not asking for a proof at this stage, just whether you think it's even theoretically possible to provide such a proof.

 

[sunshine]

Whether you believe it or not. But God is always there. No matter if we know the painter or not. If the painting is there, there must be the painter.

 

[duncan_bayne]

If the painting is there, there must be the painter.

According to Objectivism, it is axiomatic that existence exists:

Existence is axiomatic because it is necessary for all knowledge and it cannot be denied without conceding its truth. To deny existence is to say that something doesn't exist. A denial of something is only possible if existence exists.

However, it is not axiomatic that because existence exists, it must have been created. For example, one could argue that existence has always existed in some form, or that the origin of the universe is unknowable by man because that event is obscured from us by an event horizon.

So back to my question: do you think that a rational proof of the existence of God is possible, or do you think that the existence of God must be accepted on faith?

 

[duncan_bayne]

The existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved. If it were possible to prove, there would be no need for faith

And that is fundamentally why I'm an atheist, & why many of my athiest friends are too: we reject faith as a means of obtaining knowledge:

When accepting a statement as true, there are two basic methods. The first is reason. It is when the known evidence points to the statement being true, and when the truth of the statement doesn't contradict other knowledge. The second is faith. It is when one accepts a statement as true without evidence for it, or in the face of evidence against it.

That is why you will be unable to convince a typical atheist to accept the existence of God - because you're not trying to convince him that God exists, you are trying to convince him to replace reason with faith to some extent.

 

[duncan_bayne]

The knowledge of the physical world is obtained in the lab. The knowledge of the spiritual world can only be obtained from God's guidance.

So faith is a way of obtaining knowledge in Islam, but only knowledge pertaining to the spiritual world. What then are the unchanging characteristics of spiritual knowledge that distinguish it from physical knowledge?

(I say unchanging because much that is considered physical knowledge today used to be considered spiritual. For example, men once looked to religion to explain the rising and the setting of the sun, & that knowledge was considered spiritual. Nowadays of course a child can explain the process with the use of a model solar system. Knowledge that was once considered spiritual is now firmly in the realm of that which can be known by reason.)

The knowledge of the spiritual world can only be obtained from God's guidance.

How do you know that? In other words, must I as an atheist accept that statement on faith, or is there a rational explanation for why I must cede certain types of knowledge to faith?

 

[Rashadi]

So faith is a way of obtaining knowledge in Islam, but only knowledge pertaining to the spiritual world. What then are the unchanging characteristics of spiritual knowledge that distinguish it from physical knowledge?

(I say unchanging because much that is considered physical knowledge today used to be considered spiritual. For example, men once looked to religion to explain the rising and the setting of the sun, & that knowledge was considered spiritual. Nowadays of course a child can explain the process with the use of a model solar system. Knowledge that was once considered spiritual is now firmly in the realm of that which can be known by reason.)



How do you know that? In other words, must I as an atheist accept that statement on faith, or is there a rational explanation for why I must cede certain types of knowledge to faith?

Greetings brother duncan, blind faith is not promoted in Islam and actually it is false. One has to have proof first. There has to be knowledge and then one can have faith. In Islam we are told that everyone is born innocent, pure, and with a nature to know basic right from wrong and with the knowledge of our Creator. It is our parents and surroundings which influence us and make us whatever religion they follow. However, unlike in Christianity, there is no such thing as original sin in Islam so a child is innocent and has no guilt.

When the human being reaches maturity and begins to understand, it our duty to learn, seek knowledge and reflect. We must investigate with honesty, and sincerity. One advise I always give to anyone is to ask sincerely for God to show us or guide us to that which is true. If there is a God, He will guide the sincere and honest truth seeker to the correct path and that person will know the path is true because remember we are all born with it. I am a former Christian and though i never turned completely to Atheism, but I started to question my former religion which I inherited from my family and I began questioning. I realized that it didn't have solutions, answers and made no sense. That is why I was always told "just have faith" and i couldn't do that blindly.

I was sincere but at the same time honest. I was going through much hardship and my religion was just not helping me out. I never thought of Islam and I didn't even know much about it. I seen a copy of the Quran translation and began reading it out of curiosity yet I had an open mind and I was convinced that this was the truth. So blind faith is not acceptable in Islam and the Quran tells mankind to reflect and use our reason. It gives us many and many examples and signs to realize that there is a Creator and it becomes logic and understanding that this Creator is absolutely unique and one.

The questions i always had as a Christian as to why we can't see God, and many others, were all answered to my satisfaction in Islam. And honestly, I could never worship anything which looks like me or imperfect. Since we believe in that pure nature that every human is born with(fitrah) any honest person who puts aside family prejudices and thinks about it will come to realize that there is a Creator, and that this Creator is absolutely unique, perfect and He is one without any other partners.

So first comes proof and faith follows it. We have both in Islam and without evidence we will not have faith or believe. When i read the Quran with an open mind and reflect over it. I realize and understand that the author of this book is the one who created all of this and I worship none but Him. I would never worship anything created for it has no power nor does anyone nor anything deserve to be worshiped except the Creator who is uncreated, perfect and without any partners.

Sorry if I made it too long and may you find the right path, amen.

 

[kashif_nazeer]

:salam2:

So faith is a way of obtaining knowledge in Islam, but only knowledge pertaining to the spiritual world. What then are the unchanging characteristics of spiritual knowledge that distinguish it from physical knowledge?

(I say unchanging because much that is considered physical knowledge today used to be considered spiritual. For example, men once looked to religion to explain the rising and the setting of the sun, & that knowledge was considered spiritual. Nowadays of course a child can explain the process with the use of a model solar system. Knowledge that was once considered spiritual is now firmly in the realm of that which can be known by reason.)

hiiiii
I'm not much of a scholar so I definetely might be wrong(Allah knows best)
In my opinion spritual knowledge is the knowledge of self ,the knowledge of
1.Where we came from?
2.Why we are here?
3.Where do we go from here?
These in my opinion are the three basic spritual questions.
They have all been answered in the Qur'an:
1.We came from Allah.
2.We are here to serve Allah and obay his commandment ,willingly or unwillingly we all submit to His will{this includes all the dicovered or undiscovered(by humans) ,living,non-living,dead,everything}.
3.Our final return and the return of all the affairs is to Allah.
There are such large number of things yet undiscovered,unanswered that we seem like we dont even have knowledge comparable to an atom.Everything so shallow with certain degrees of improbabilities.

How do you know that? In other words, must I as an atheist accept that statement on faith, or is there a rational explanation for why I must cede certain types of knowledge to faith?

Well,every knowldege,even things established as facts have a certain degree of 'might be' attached to them,everything can be seen as a function of probability in other words.So there is no surety of anything.
So how can we assured of anything?Truely we got to have faith in it.
In Surat Al Hajj (The Pilgrimage) verse #70 ALLAH (SWT) Says “Do not you know that ALLAH Knows what is in the heaven and the earth, indeed it is all in a record, and that is easy for ALLAH”.

 

[nasiruyola]

:salam2:
while it is easier drinking cold water to proove the existence of ALMIGHTY ALLAH, it is useful to know the kind of people you ARE DEALING WITH. IF THEY ARE PEOPLE OF UNDERSTANDING whom are not abusing your beliefs, then you can engage in a meaningful discussion with them. if on the other hand, they are not willing to listen, my advice to you is not to waste your time.
remember the recent attempt to regenerate what they called the BIG BANG THEORY. if suppose that bprocess was successful, the easiest answer to somene who claimed to be an atheist, is to ask him the number of engineers and scientist that have regrouped to reproduce the BIG BANG SAGA. at the end of the day, a problem with the radiater caused it to be deelayed. WHAT THIS MEANS IS THERE IS ALWAYS A FORCE BEHIND ANY ACTIVITY INCLUDING THE BIG BANG. IT THEN REMAINS FOR THE ATHEIST TO TELL US THE CONTROLLER OF SUCH PROCESS.

 

[duncan_bayne]

That we can never know it on our own. No amount of experimentation or reasoning can tell us the truth about that which God has hidden from us (what the Quran calls Al-Ghayb). Things like God's existence, what He looks like, the creation of man, the angels, the devils, the soul and life after death.

In times gone by, people have included the movements of the stars and planets, infectious disease, and rainbows in that list. What are the specific, unchanging characteristics of knowledge that is Al-Ghayb? How can I myself know whether a question is Al-Ghayb or not?

I've been Muslim since birth, but I also read the Bible, read from the Bhagavad Gita and the Book of Buddha, The Tao Te Ching, the mystic stories of native Americans and the atheist writings of Neo Tech. You will never expand your mind and enrich your soul if you stick with what you've been told and with your narrow circle of like-minded people.

You're making quite an assumption there; I've read from the Bible, the Qu'ran, several books on Krisna by Prabhupada, the Book of Mormon, several Ahadith, most of Ayn Rand's writing, a fair bit of Aristotle, Hofstaeder, Hawking, Piekoff. My friends are atheists, agnostics, Christians, Jews and Baha'i. (Remember also that atheists aren't exactly a monoculture; Communists are atheists, but that doesn't mean I see eye to eye with them on almost anything else).

I was raised an atheist by my parents, but made a point of investigating religion (I remember throwing something of a hissy fit as a child when my mother threw out a Bible I was reading).

The thing is, I've yet to find any system of religion that doesn't contain something like Al-Ghayb (although that said a number of secular philosophies suffer from the same malady). This is why I'm so keen to get you to explain what you think the characteristics of such knowledge are.

I think that people have throughout history defined 'facts not understandable by man alone' as 'things we don't understand right now'. There is no reason that I can see to think that anything that we can observe will be forever beyond our understanding.

 

[duncan_bayne]

now if you could answer this, I'll give up. Could you explain this: "There are 3 bricks lying on the road. These 3 brick suddenly standing above each other. There is no one who make it stand to each other."

Where did you see this happen?

 

[ahmed3711]

also the easiest answer to somene who claimed to be an atheist is the gravitation theory because all humans believe in gravity but they don't see it

 

[duncan_bayne]

Good to know that you read the Quran. That ends my responsibility toward you as a fellow human being. You've said earlier that I'm not going to convince you and you most certainly will never convince me of atheism, so it's difficult to see what we can add to this discussion. Peace.

I didn't say that there is nothing you could say to convince me, merely that what you'd have to do would be to convince me that there are types of knowledge which I can't obtain through observation and reason alone.

Because my opinion is a reasoned one, it must by definition be open to change should there be new information available. Only an opinion that is based on faith - that is, one that is not based on reason - is unreachable and unchangable by new information.

That said, thank you for the discussion. I've learned more about Islamic epistemology & the distinction you draw between faith & reason, & I hope you've learned some more about atheism (at least, the Objectivist take on it).

If there is anyone else here who could answer this:

That we can never know it on our own. No amount of experimentation or reasoning can tell us the truth about that which God has hidden from us (what the Quran calls Al-Ghayb). Things like God's existence, what He looks like, the creation of man, the angels, the devils, the soul and life after death.

In times gone by, people have included the movements of the stars and planets, infectious disease, and rainbows in that list. What are the specific, unchanging characteristics of knowledge that is Al-Ghayb? How can I myself know whether a question is Al-Ghayb or not?

... I'd greatly appreciate it. This for me is the fundamental issue with Islam epistemology (and religious epistemology in general) - the idea that there is a class of knowledge that is beyond human reason.

It is my opinion that there is no clear definition of that class, and that in any age, people place in it those questions that they currently can't answer (a thousand years ago it was the movement of planets; today it is what happened when the universe was very young).

 

[duncan_bayne]

1. The water is having the right percentage of hidrogen and oxygen, it is not solid nor gas.

2. The range between the sun and the earth which is perfect.

3. The scientists had declare over and over again in the 21th century that if there was even 0,00000...1 fault, then the earth wouldn't be created like now and so too with everything in Allah's nature.

This is best explained by the weak anthropic principle. Imagine you won a lottery (I know gambling is haram but this is the best example I can think of). You are standing in the street and think to yourself "what are the odds that all these numbers came up in the right order?"

Well, the odds are very slim indeed. But if you're standing there holding the ticket (or if you're standing on a seemingly perfect Earth in a seemingly perfect universe) then it must already have happened. Even if the odds are a billion billion to one against, if you have that ticket in your hand, then it has happened.

Have a read of this article for a more articulate explanation.

4. The scientist already said that the universes were created out of nothing. While we live in this earth having oxigen, water, sun heat, atmospheres which are the shield from the radiants of the sun.

One of the questions as yet unanswered by science is: how did the universe come to be? The thing is, the fact that scientists have not yet answered this question does not automatically validate arbitrary answers. If you claim that you have an answer, you ought to be able to prove it, unless it's Al-Ghayb - which is as I've said elsewhere on this thread my primary epistemological objection to religion.

5. Evolution never existed because there were no animals which were a half transformed. That explained in an animal which could produce a hot and poisonous liquid sprays, and the liquid was inside its belly, If evolution happened to this animals, then these animals will die before that, because it saved that kind of liquid and it does have a protection wall inside its stomach.

"These uncertainties aside, it is becoming clear that genomes are not the randomly arranged set of genes that we might have imagined them to be. But is this also true at a smaller scale? For example, could natural selection explain which genes are next to each other on a given chromosome? The clustering of broadly expressed genes13, such as those for the everyday running of cells, suggests that small-scale gene arrangements are not always random. These could be exceptions rather than the rule, however, and clarification of the issues awaits the sequencing of the complete genomes of more organisms."

This means that Allahu Al Mushawwir(The Fashioner) which made it into being by putting genes in order. Agnostic got no part in Nubuwwat of Rasulullah.

...

Hybrid marriage came from Ikhtiyar (action) of men to marry them. Allahu Ta'ala only marry between a she and a he. The so called volution could not breed a he with a he, or a she with a she.

You can clearly see how evolutionary steps can interbreed by examining ring species. This diagram shows how the interbreeding you claim is impossible actually happens between gulls:

I suggest you have a read of The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, which explains a lot about current thinking about evolution.

 

[pcozzy]

I didn't say that there is nothing you could say to convince me, merely that what you'd have to do would be to convince me that there are types of knowledge which I can't obtain through observation and reason alone. [/qoute]

I don't have time, but let me quickly correct what you think and what you expect.

First let take your thought, do you have a brain? well that is a reasonable question isn't it. How do you know you have a brain. Did you use observation and reason alone to tell you 100% that you have a brain.

Ok, you took a dead human and cut his head, then seen a white gelatin type substance. Observation right.

Now prove to me that you have exactly the same thing in your head.
Are you sure?

Ok, you got me, there is a high probable chance that you do.

You didn't know that you had a brain that was white and gelatin type substance until you read or someone told you that.

So why is it when God tells you that he exists, has all these beyond human comprehension qualities, you say well it's a lottery ticket.

You are not looking to the Quran with a pure heart. Of course observation and reason will lead you to believe the heart has no function except to pump blood. But then again if you look into that uncharted human phenomenon you will find studies that cells have a tendency to hold feeling and thought in heart transplants.

So to conclude, you need to accept things because you or man as a whole has no complete knowledge of our realities. Thus far we been able to describe laws and from our point of reference. Philosophy, in my opinion is just a waste of valuable time.

peace

 

[humza786]

I Disagree with most of your comments about faith. As muslims it is our duty to guide others. Allah does not expect us to believe in him and be faithful without teaching us the reasons for such. This is why he sent down the Qur'an. It teaches us of how our life is a test etc and if we read it carefully we indeed can relate to these things in an amazing manner. If your read the Qur'an in english translation of verses with an explanation of what is being said you will understand the power and might of Allah. This is why the Qur'an is so improtant to us muslims. If you want some furthermore external proof then check out these sites:

Islam can. then click on miracle pictures

Islam can. then click on Wonders of Allah


Now if you still think that a theory such as the Big BAng can explain things of this compelxity then fine but just think about it...

 

[Zafran]

salaam

Yes as Duncan has read the Quran he should know how clear the Quran is. The main test is to believe in God - thats the point. Reason especailly empircal reasoning can only get us so far. Besides we have to believe in every thing we know - without faith in knowledge its useless. Furthermore as you are an athiest you are in the same boat of Faith - you have to believe there is no God.

 

[TheHumbleWun]

Hello Duncan,

Please read this by Dr. Zakir Naik, a prominent scholar of comparative relgion.

Congratulating an Athiest

Brother Ayman1,

You said it right on when you wrote that in "Christianity faith is blind." See my post:

http://www.turntoislam.com/forum/showpost.php?p=212943&postcount=6

Action without faith or faith without action both lead to a life of destruction in this world and the hereafter. The two are inter-dependent. We can diligently state that the Quran is a source of our faith and the Sunnah (personificiation & actions of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him) is a model for our action. That's why we have the two! An athiest has no model of what is right or wrong, they make the laws according to their own desires.

If one truly reads the Quran with a open heart and is eager to find the Truth, there is no shadow of a doubt that they will find their answers. The Quran makes this clear in the opening chapter:

"This is the Book (Quran), whereof there is NO DOUBT a guidance to those who are Al-Muttaqun (pious)" (Holy Quran, 2:2)