Re: God, a proven fact or a mere fiction?
Brother kprasad, it seems to me that I need to explain things in a bit more detail for you to help you understand things from my point of view.
I will first address the problem you have with understanding of evidence and proof.
Before a court could decide any cases, it has to define what constitutes a proof for what kind of claim so that when its required proof becomes established the case is decided in favour of the claimant.
Not all proofs or evidences are same in their strength. For example, proof of a purchase is receipt of the merchant you receive from the dealer. If two people dispute the ownership of a thing then the one who can provide the proof of ownership of the thing will be accepted as the owner of the thing.
In a case if court decides you only need statements of two witnesses then that will constitute a proof.
In case of murder you not only need to prove murder but motive and the way the murder was committed, So any witness and any other evidence will be required for that purpose etc etc.
The question for us to decide is, what will constitute as a proof in case of God? Proof is not self evident fact so that has to be ruled out. Because self evident fact is self evident in the way that it is self evident. For example, I can see sun but I cannot touch it and for same reason I cannot smell it or taste it. Therefore sun is self evident in certain ways and not in certain other ways. However, existence of sun could be proven in the sense it is not self evident ie we can use other ideas to discover other aspects of sun that are not directly verifiable for us.
There are things in the universe that we can only see but not touch etc etc. That tells us that not all is directly verifiable for us even in the existing universe that we can see.
The brain needs senses to verify things and before it can verify anything with senses it needs to learn how to use them. In fact brain needs to learn how to use itself. So before brain can verify anything it has to verify itself ie I think therefore I am. So use of all things needs a lot of learning, training and practice so that it makes less and less mistakes and errors so that its works and judgements are more and more right than wrong.
This being the case with our own very selves how can we say that science is reliable more than a testimony because at the end of the day it is all human work?
Let us compare scientific method with testimony method and see if both rely on same thing or not.
We observe things and after understanding them get at some result. For example how did we come to know the universe is expanding? The answer is by observing universe over a period of time we figured it is expanding.
How do we know what the quran says is right? We use exactly same idea, we observe the real world over a period of time about things the quran talks about and we find that what it says is exactly right and therefore draw the conclusion that what we cannot observe directly is also true because we have nothing against it to prove it wrong.
The question is, what does the quran talk about? It talks about each and everything we can think about because it talks about humanity and its needs and wants and how it should fulfil them to be in peace and progress and be prosperous. On the other hand it tells us you cannot be in peace if you lie, steal, kill each other, rob each other etc etc. In short what the quran talks about is inn the quran read and find out then observe what happens when we do things it stops us from and what happens if we do not do what it tells us to do. The results become clear like day light.
This shows that scientific method can be used in either case. Because at the base of all this is observation and drawing conclusions. Be it a cell of biological organism or social system and structure or set up of economic nature.
The quran tells us your goal of life should be living in peace and exploring the universe for the benefit of humanity ie managing people and resources properly. If you do not do that then you will suffer the consequences and we are suffering consequences for ignoring advice of Allah.
Mughal1,
Eye witness proof is called circumstantial evidence. It needs to be corroborated. Every professional knows that eye witness proof is very unreliable, unless you have lots of people that witnessed the same event and you have physical evidence. So, simply because two people saw something, doesn’t make it a fact.
But for the sake of argument, lets say that was enough. I trust you, so I will believe what you tell me. Let’s say you have a friend, and I trust him as well and will believe what he tells me. The issue here is, even if my trust of you is transitive, that is I trust you, and you trust your friend, therefore I trust your friend, the issue with believing in a deity, based on that, is that it has to be transitive thousands of times. But, why is that required? If there is an ever present and omnipotent being, why is it that only bronze age people have spoken to it/him/her?
As for the sun, it is not self evident. We can measure it’s radiation. It’s size. We’ve sent probes that have studied it. It can be verified empirically. I don’t need to take the existence of the sun on faith. It’s a matter of fact! Every aspect of the sun is verifiable, and we have verified everything we can think of.
Science is more reliable because it can be reproduced by anyone. That’s the great thing! As you stated, though somewhat differently, every brain is different. We have different experiences. But, we have come to universal truths, the Pythagorean theorem for example. Things that are true regardless of your experiences and prejudices. We then use those universal truths to examine what we’re looking at. Science allows us to rationally and empirically examine things, without our prejudices, and then lets us come to a conclusion. This is not what religion does! If order for me to believe in the prophet hood of Mohamed, I have to believe in the Quran. That is circular logic.
Coming to your objection about suffering in the world, this is called growing pain ie the quicker we learn to live properly the sooner these will disappear. The more time we take to learn things the more we will suffer. It is because God has given us all we need eg things and guidance so if we learn things and behave the way we are told then we will solve our problems. All we need is grow up and the growing pains will stop. In my very first post I have explained only and only these points.
Let me try and explain to you this as well.
Let say there are ten people living in the same house. Do they know anything about the house? It is because the house could be dangerous and they should not be living in it. However they don’t care to know this, now if they die because of their deliberate ignorance of finding out then whose fault it is? If some know and they try to tell others but they do not listen then whose fault it is?
In the quran people are told everything they need to know and if they will learn it and do what needs to be done to live in this universe the way it should be done then life will keep on flourishing.
Were people not dying due to earth quakes and are they still not? Do we not have early warning systems like smoke alarms that save lives. Can you see what I am getting at? God did not create man to be a cry baby. Please read my first 2 proper posts with a bit of thinking because they explain away all you are confused about.
Man is created to become a mini god in this universe. He is not a slave of this universe but a master of this universe. Once he becomes as such only and only then he will see glory of God by doing a lot of thinking and creativity like God himself. Man has found this universe the way it is and he is created with potential to change it the way he wants it to be. This is how by eliminating all wrongs in the universe one day he will make universe become consistent with his wishes provided man keeps acting the way God told him.
Please start grabbing the ideas I am explaining rather than keep rushing to religious nonsense. As I said before, it is a huge mistake to take the quran as a religious holy book. That is insult to God and humanity both.
Allah is not looking for false praise from chained slaves. Allah is looking forward to a day when man has learned enough to act like God himself. That is when Allah will be please with what he has created not a preprogrammed robot but a self programming robot. And this self programming robot will also be pleased with what it has done. I mean is it not a huge surprise that one day the man who is just a single cell like a tiny seed of a huge tree grows up to manage the whole of this universe. All this will be ideas and creativity of man himself. This is why it will show man how great creator God himself is to create a thing like a man.
It is all matter of understanding the fact that living things have urge to exert themselves and the only way they can do that is by doing something they are capable of doing. God also created universe to express himself and he needed something to express himself to. That is what man is. Allah has given man dignity in his book and man has to rise to that dignity. The quran is a very strange book if one could understand it properly.
The human world is a closed system. If one human does anything wrong others are supposed to correct him because if they don’t then suffering will keep on increasing till people themselves take actions to put things right so that things are pushed in the right direction so that man could reach his destination quicker.
I hope you think over things and try and understand them. That is the only way forward for all of us otherwise we will keep doing things the wrong way and keep on suffering. God does not help unless people follow his system and its laws. You throw some one in the burning fire he burns. This is why God says don’t do that but we still do that and then blame God.
regards and all the best.
Listen to what iqbal thought about the quran.
Kalam-e-Iqbal by Iqbal bano - Har cheez hai Mehv-e-Khud Numai (Baal-e-Jibreel Ghazal #31) - YouTube
Virsa - Khirad kay Paas Khabar - Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan & Hina Nasrullah sing Kalam e IqbaL - YouTube
I find this perplexing, the notion that some god has given us everything we need to know. I’ve read the Quran, albeit an English translation. There was nothing in there about biology, immunology, physics, no calculus, not even basic anatomy. What was in there, in regards to biology was dead wrong. Not even close! It was as wrong as the Mahabaratha, the Bible, and Torah! Every bit of attempted science, is wrong! What does that say? How can devine revelation be so wrong?