Religion and logic cannot run together
This is a matter of all kinds of possibilities… Now let’s come to reality. We consider the religion to be the best which we are born in and a person born in a Muslim religion feels that he is born in the ‘right’ religion while a person born in a Hindu religion feels that he is born in the ‘right’ religion and all other religions and their followers are wrong. The mentality of the people imprisoned in different enclosures starts with ‘Our own is superior’ and ends at the same. There is a large number of such people in the world and the funny thing is that due to their blind devotion and blind faith, they would easily accept all kinds of illogical arguments. Just think despite being equipped with all kinds of education they give their seal of acceptance to such irrational things.
Today, if we say anything irrational beyond the faith of a religious person, he applies a little mind and dismisses it. But if the other people around him say the same irrational thing, then pressure keeps on mounting him to accept that irrational thing and maybe at some point, he may give his acceptance to that irrational thing….This is a centuries-old pattern of all religions. When a child is born, his parents start feeding him with all kinds of irrational things related to religion. As he grows a little older rest of the people in the house, relatives say the same irrational things to him, he reaches school and college, then he finds the same people there who repeat all the same things and then he goes to the job, here too the people there are repeating the same things and he grasps those things even in his subconscious so much that he cannot deny those things even in his dreams.
It is not easy to get out of the religious morass in such a situation and if someone comes out of it then it is obvious that he somewhere decided on this whole pattern… the criterion of thinking, questioning, finding answers, reasoning every religious story… and this is the brainstorm that results in a person going beyond theism to reality.
As a Muslim, if you want to jump into this brainstorm, come with me and think, understand what can be true… Meditate in the things that are inherently complicated and question yourself, if not anyone else.
Is the Omnipresence of God proved by this story?
First of all, come on a story of ‘Soor e Bakra’ of the Quran… that tells how God created Adam and asked all the angels including the Iblees to prostrate him, but the Iblees refused and as a result, his recognition as a ‘devil’ took place- if we think of this story in a slightly symbolic way, it will become something like this…
Suppose you are a celebrity of the types of Ambani – You have a mansion built in 100 acres, which has arrangements like a rest house for the guests, a park and a swimming pool. At the same time, you are also known as a religious teacher and you have claimed that you not only know what is on the people’s minds but what will happen in the future is also in your knowledge.
You have two sons – one day you call both sons in front of all the servants of the house and tell the eldest son and the servants to call ‘Papa’ to the younger son… Here, it may not be important for the elder son or servants to assume or say ‘Papa’, the obedience to your order is important—
But the elder son is not convinced to say ‘Papa’ to his own father’s son and his younger brother – while the rest of the servants consider the younger son to be ‘Papa’ without much hesitation, the elder son flatly refuses and you become upset and declare your eldest son a ‘Kuputra’ and decide a ‘Prison Punishment’ for him.
You have a computer, in which you have collected all the necessary information and you have told everyone at home that they may touch or use anything in the house use but do not disturb this computer. Now ‘Kuputra’ turned elder son instigated the younger that he opened the computer and saw what was inside.
On knowing this, you were filled with unlimited anger and you expelled both ‘Kuputra’ and ‘Suputra’ son out of the mansion saying they have to stay in the rest house outside the mansion from now-on — for a certain time and then they will get an entry back to the mansion.
Since the younger son had apologized, you have assured him that all his children have to do certain things – for that not only will they get an entry back to the mansion, but they will also be awarded by nice gifts. Along that gave the elder son a chance that besides he will go to jail, he can seduce as many of his younger brother’s children — and take all of them to the jail with him.
Why does God always need to show beneficence?
Now they start living there, but you repeatedly impose gratitude by telling the younger son and his children that look, we built this house for you – this park, a pool full of water… this LCD, cable, Miniplex, arranged Veg and Non-veg dishes – gave items like Raymond, Reid & Taylor’s clothes, Roland Watches, Ray-ban glasses, Nike shoes.
Now some confusion arises here – the first question mark will be on your knowledge that you did not know, what would be the reaction of the elder son on your call, because if you knew, you would not say anything which is disregarded or you would not be so angry that you would declare your elder son a ‘Kuputra’ for disobeying you.
The second complication is that on your call, the denial of the elder son to call the younger son as ’Papa’ was a sudden incident, which could be avoided by the confession and a little bending of the elder son — that is why your show of beneficence to the younger son for the rest house and the facilities there, will be proved a lie … Suppose elder son would have called him ‘Papa’, these things were meaningless. Then this dialogue for the already made things, “we made it for you” — will automatically be rejected.
The third complication is that under one possibility, assume that you knew everything and whatever you did was done knowingly, then the title of ‘Kuputra’ to a son, to punish both the sons by expelling from the mansion and the jail sentence for Kuputra and the children of the younger son who came under seduction is too much for them.
Obviously, if you apply this story to yourself, then you will not digest this behaviour from yourself but in the name of religion, you accept this story very easily.
Now if you ask such questions to the likes of a religious person or Maulana etc., then the first possibility would be that you can be given the title of a Kafir, Munafik or Atheist which is the most common custom among Muslims, because there is no permission to think about or ask such questions in Islam. Well… let’s talk about this charge because this one word ‘Atheist’ too, creates a lot of confusion.
What should the meaning of an atheist?
There is a person who calls himself an atheist, whom you also categorize as an atheist… not only he keeps ridiculing the established God and the beliefs attached to them – but also keeps on humiliating those who believe in them, then he cannot be an atheist, because in order to ridicule he is accepting the very existence of God – If he is accepting the existence of God, then he is not fulfilling the first condition of being an atheist. An Atheist is the one who has no faith… And if there is no faith, how can one ridicule anything.
Now, when such a person comes to the fore, the first thing believers expect from him to tell that how will he be married – how will he be cremated after death because the rites associated with them represent some religion.
It actually is a kind of foolishness that you are seeking rituals from someone who has no faith – means you are expecting him to decide on any ritual for marriage or funeral and the people with similar ideology should do everything according to them. Then even atheism will become a separate cult.
If the man decides the faith, then what is the meaning of being an atheist? Atheism is personal thinking, a personal lifestyle, not any cult. If I say that I am an atheist, there will never be a condition that my wife should also be an atheist or that my parents should also be atheists. I may not have faith in any rituals for marriage, but if my partner does have one then why should I have problems with her faith?
You do a ‘Nikah’, do marry by taking circles around the fire, do a court marriage – what difference does it make? The one, who has to maintain the relationship will maintain it without these rituals, as they used to do before the practice of marriage took place and those who don’t want to, will not even do it despite these religious rituals. Millions of divorces in the world are witness to this logic.
As far as rituals of the funeral after death are concerned, as soon as I stop breathing, my consciousness is over – what difference does it make to me whether I was burnt, buried, fed to eagles or given to medical students…
It matters to those who care about life after death. What difference does it make to those who don’t have faith in this thing? Here too, it matters to people around those who die that how will they perform the cremation according to their faith, then why should I mind to their faith?
The wife of an atheist can be a theist – her parents can be theists.
Ashfaq Ahmad 
An eye opener blog for all muslims.
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Thank you for sharing your views, which gives the opportunity for people to respond. I have thought about these questions. And from certain points of view, I can understand people finding difficulty in believing, from some perspectives. The intellect is an amazing thing and can reason just about any way the thinker decides. The question is then, what are you looking for? And that can only come from you. Then the question is are you looking for the truth? For what the heart wants it seeks. And if there is going to be any truth, then nothing will ever satisfy you until you do find. But if you’re not seeking what is true, then there will necessitate a constant thinking and reasoning/rereasoning, the convincing of others for those times of doubt and emptiness, and constant refutations of understanding that points to what is true. For truth always follows.
I’m not a C.S. Lewis follower, though as with other writers, I have read some of his books. However, before I share this, I realized early in life that I exist. Then, I wondered how I came to be. I couldn’t accept that my two parents were the reason for my soul: the me inside this body. The one who’s aware of himself when he closes his eyes. How did “I” come to exist, I wondered? Why couldn’t it have been someone else besides me in this body, I wondered?
Over the years, I realized many other things, which I won’t go into now. But I marveled at the order of creation, but also the complexity, realizing an explosion couldn’t create order and evolution is not a fact. Not only that, but I learned the simplest of life forms never could have self-evolved. Again, I won’t go into that, and leave the readers to decide through their own research. *I understand the writer will probably refute some of what I’ve shared, but that’s for the writer. I have done the research so realized for myself.
C.S. Lewis wrote something that caused another “ah haaa”, moment. He grew up in a church, then became an atheist, one reason due to all the suffering in the world. But I think he was a searching soul. For no matter how much he wanted to believe in atheism, he realized it was too simplistic and bereft of real searching. You see, he realized that though there is much suffering in the world, how was it he knew how things “should be?” In other words, if there is no god, and we’re just all evolved creatures, how did he know there is a right and wrong? How do people know when someone has done them wrong? How do we know when we see goodness? And this led to many of his writings and stories.
It’s up to you to decide. I encourage you to keep searching. Keep moving in the direction and chase the rabbit down the trail. Keep going. I think, if you’re honest, you’re going to see many of the contradictions, that it’s really not a contradiction to realize we were created. That the whole world was created. With time, you’ll realize you can’t use sufferings, problems, divorces, and such things as reasons to disprove. In fact, you’ll realize, with time, all of this proves that we are all created, and by a good God. For how did we arrive at the understanding of good? How did we come to see how things should be? How is there a should be? And from religion to religion, there are similarities that go across all of them. Like it’s in our DNA. Again, this is for the readers to decide. And intellect is not a substitute to understanding. And where did understanding come from?
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Keep reading my all blogs.. 🙂
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When you read mine, I’d love your input.
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There’s a thought I’d like to share: with you and readers. This may be a restatement: It’s something I came to realize on my own. Only later did I see this understanding in other writers and in the bible. Actually, I had a better understanding of what was written in there from my own understanding, which told me something very important.
I won’t seek to prove what I’m about to say. It’s something I “see” and came to understand. I can’t prove it. There are no scientific experiments I am aware of to “prove” it. As I understand, it’s something that is self-revealing, happened over time, and became very clear. This last, in my young childhood, I realized: that truth has to be self-revealing. Don’t know how I understood this, and it troubled me for years, but it also had the impact of myself not being gullible.
The very life we have is from God. It’s His life in us that gives us life. It’s his awareness in us that gives us awareness. It’s his understanding inside us that gives us understanding. This last one I came to when I realized that I understood things that were never taught to me. I wondered: how is it that I understand these things without having been taught? One small example, in the fifth grade, when I knew my science teacher was incorrect in believing gravity could be explained with a bucket of water swung by the arm. Another, much younger, when I realized scientists could not know what dinosaurs looked like, especially the colors and habits, which we’re starting to see some scientists agree. Still another, that the soul is not the flesh, that we are inside these bodies, but not the bodies. This was later supported when I watched a show about a boy who lost half of his brain and was miraculously saved, later living a normal life with the same personality.
There was written in the bible, where Paul explained that the pot (one made beautiful and another for common use) cannot speak to the potter: why did you make me thus? So, like always, when I don’t understand something, I leave it to the ponder column. If I don’t know, I don’t know, and I’m okay with that. I’ll never know everything, or even close to it. But hopefully, I’ll appreciate what I do come to understand. *But I understand something else: the bible, translated into English, does not say things exactly as the original writers intended or meant. Why? Because it was written in different languages, with different grammar rules, in a different culture with different experiences, and punctuation was not as it is today. And the same thing can be written, interpreted differently by two people reading. And sometimes, when we read the same thing again, we see something more. However, in reading it, over time and pondering, as some things will be written as they were meant, you can understand what was written in the bible. Some people use several translations.
The other day, I read one who shared that when a person “sees” things that are not right, wonders why there is so much wrong in the world, it reveals that within us is the understanding of right and wrong. Whether there is much wrong in the world doesn’t remove this understanding. So, the question is, where did this understanding come from? How is it we can all understand the same things? How is it we all understand goodness and evil, or wrong if you will? And very similar ideas go across the main religions. How is it we can understand anything at all?
In other words, when a religious person or atheist, or any other, questions God, you are using the understanding that is His. In other words, your understanding is His understanding, that is, the understanding that is real. As the pot questions the potter, so are atheists questioning the very One Who created them, with His understanding. You could not have a thought, understand anything, or be aware of yourself or anything else if He weren’t living in you as the source of your life? His life is your life. He gives a small portion of Himself to you, His life in you, as I understand.
So, like one person shared, what an atheist is doing is cutting the branch he or she is sitting on. But, He’s giving you the opportunity to realize things for yourself and seek Him. In other words, we can never truly argue with our creator. We can only wonder, ask questions, be patient should we get answers, and keep seeking Him Who is the answer. In other words, what we don’t understand is because it hasn’t been revealed to our minds yet. Which we should realize that we don’t know everything, very little in fact, and therefore, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean there are reasons for things as they are. We just don’t know. But I think, if we’re honest and searching, perhaps asking God for answers, we will receive those answers in good time, if we’re honestly searching.
*One more thing: when God made us, he gave us a kind of “free will.” I believe this was so we weren’t born robots. He loves us, and with His love, we can return the love. But with life, understanding, and “free will,” we also have the opportunity to choose differently, as Adam and Eve did when the serpent got them to believe they could be like gods, living their own lives, finding their own happiness apart from god. But that was impossible. His life is our life. We can only be happy and truly alive with Him. In other words, if He wasn’t thinking about us, stopped being our source, we would cease to exist.
**One last thing, every argument I’ve ever heard an atheist speak actually proves He exists, is good, and has our best interests even if we don’t yet understand.
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