Every new era’s discoveries have been solving previous questions
Many discoveries have been made in last thousand years and thousands of mysteries related to nature have been solved— imagine times of fourteen hundred years ago, A curious person must have asked why these earthquakes come and some enlightened person would have told that the land on which women indulge in crimes, God instigates earthquakes there. Even today, you will find some Maulana saying that wearing of jeans by women causes earthquakes.
Like the cause of the earthquake, people also had the question that if a couple performs the same kind of sex, how are different children as a boy or a girl born. Then whereas someone would have taken patience to treat it as God’s act and someone else started looking for the reasons and reached to the chromosomes.
Now people caught the different question that in the same temperature, same conditions, people are born as male and female, how is it being decided— if there is an answer to it tomorrow, these people will not be there to see it, but their grandchildren will then be standing there with a new question that if this is so, why is it— why is the egg yolk yellow, why not the magenta. All the discoveries made in the world, inventions have been done – the physical things which people do not hesitate using, the resources with which the world has improved, all those are the result of those who struggle with questions, not theirs who simply have been defining the answer to every question as God’s will.
So friends, the list of questions will never end, but see that people like us struggle with those questions, discover them… But those religious people, in response to every complicated question, close the door of their wisdom by calling them as a will of God.
Not one— there were many questions in the past whose answers used to end in the shelter of God, but their answers were found, even today the questions which are there, answers to them will also be found tomorrow— then they will bring about new questions like of ‘Ishvar Sharanam Gachchami’. Those who ask questions must keep in mind while asking, that their logical answer should be there with themselves … It is not wise to lock the doors on the question by taking the shield of God.
Theist atheist or agnostic
However, according to me there is nothing like an atheist, someone believes in some unknown power which is the creator of the whole universe, then someone believes in the omnipotent nature— the difference is that he denies the customs established according to religious beliefs, keeps himself away from the cantrips of the book, then he becomes an atheist according to the religious and is reasonably damned and sometimes even reasonably murdered.
Well, as far as I am concerned I can be called agnostic and my thinking is that if something is created, there must be some creator. I find the theory of everything being created automatically to be strange. Closely notice a small part of the whole universe— our solar system. How eight planets, at a certain distance, in a certain order, and with a certain speed are orbiting on its axis for billions of years? Can it happen on its own… maybe or maybe not, how can we give a definite statement? It may also be a possibility that it is a computerized system and if it is a computerized system then there must be someone outside the universe… who designed this whole system.
Although the boundaries of the universe are endless for us due to our limited knowledge and limited intelligence, technically it is not possible that there would be no boundaries. So there will be someone beyond those limits who has created this universe – as long as we don’t have a sure answer, to keep their hearts people here can also believe that he only is God.
In my view, then he is a programmer or scientist (definitely not a human being, but in any form, which is also beyond our imagination) or there will be more than one programmer or team of scientists, but to the same power we have given a prevailing recognition in the form of a God, like an emperor, an eccentric king, a strict administrator or a magician who performed many miracles in the past (sometimes even nowadays) he, like any company owner, keeps writing everyone’s deeds through his accountant’s team and then based on them he will give promotion (Jannat) or Demotion (Dozakh) accordingly. I don’t think he will do that much for people like us who are far smaller of living beings than micro bacteria (according to the immensity the universe), while life on crores out of Trillions of planets of the universe like this may exist.
However, if we go according to the concept of God which has been created by the theists – then the biggest difference between the God of the theists and a real God (if any), is that their (theists) God is just theirs (as Allah for Muslims, as Bhagwan or Ishwar for Hindus or as God for Christians), He is an alien to others, will not give them salvation, will not give them heaven and eventually will only punish them.
Whereas which can be inscribed as a God from the other point of view, is a God of everyone (believers of all religions, atheists), He has created everyone and is not alien to anyone and if indeed there comes a day of justice, then he will do equal justice with everyone.
And it is also certain that he is not there in the books, he is not even in these worship methods (Puja/Namaz/Prayer), and He is not in the houses (Temples/Mosques/Churches) built in his name. He is in mankind, in humanity, truth, right, justice and peace.
There are many complications associated with the concept of God
Now come on some things which have kept me entangled since childhood… While growing in my culture, I heard many things since childhood, whom I could never reconcile to. Even today, whenever those things are seen in the words of people here and there, then the old pain would emerge— let us see by these examples.
● God has already written everything i.e. the fate of the human—
If so, why is Gabbar Singh guilty of cutting Thakur’s hand or killing Thakur saheb’s family? It was just an actor named Amzad Khan, playing a mere character written by Salim Javed. If guilty as Gabbar, he was punished by Veeru and Thakur. Now that the film is complete, why to hold Amzad Khan accountable? Why the Heaven or Hell for him? The example of the film is given because we can also keep human life like that.
Often some scholars answer that a person does not commit misdeeds because God has already written it— rather he does it on his own free will and is responsible for his deeds, but since God already knows all these things through ‘Gaib’, that’s why he wrote everything in advance. It is something like a person who can visit to see the future and come back and then writes it down. Of course, with this theory, everything /action/event can be adjusted in the same way, where a human hits a stone anywhere on the empty wall and then where the stones hits— he centralizes the place and draws a circle and tells the world how precisely I have hit the target.
● God determines the death and birth of man—
Now if you will hold your ear with a straight hand that when it was the destiny of Thakur’s sons to die by the hands of Gabbar, How did Gabbar become guilty? Or the way Amitabh was born in ‘Lavaris’, out of an illicit relationship between Amzad Khan and Rakhi, how come Amzad was accused of adultery? So maybe someone can give logic that God knew this, so he wrote this thing. But it was Gabbar aka Amzad who was responsible for the act— but remember that the theory of the God to fix the birth/death will prove to be wrong… or else we can assume that the child born due to illicit relationship and the murder of someone else was a will of the God and the person responsible for them could not be blamed.
● God writes the blessings of food for the people on the night of Shab-e-Kadra—
Then he also writes the blessings of food for the thief – the robber, the smuggler, the corrupt, the writes for prostitute too… then how do they become guilty for their deeds? Here if we fit this theory that God knows everything through ‘Gaib’ and on that basis he wrote, then it also has to be believed that it was his decision for the thief to earn the food by doing theft and since he already knew that such thing will happen, he has written it— but even in that condition, the blame for writing blessings of food for the thief came on him. Besides that millions of people worldwide die of starvation, then the blame for their death will also come on him, that why didn’t he write the food in the fate of those who died?
● Two angels sit on both shoulders of a man and write his good and bad deeds—
When God already knows everything through Gaib and has written A to Z things accordingly, then what responsibilities are being fulfilled by these two angels sitting on the shoulders— is there any doubt that the writing of God may change? Or it is an exercise to check the honesty of the angels that both the accounts will be tallied later and if they are found guilty, punitive action will also be taken on the angels.
Ashfaq Ahmad 