Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
Peace Ranjhaa
Again you are right that having one thing in sync with science does not qualify Divine presence. However, you argument is incomplete. Firstly, those other nations that identified iron as “ore of the heavens” - what was their source, because in Islam we believe that all nations have been sent their prophets. If you can show that their source was other than scripture or teachings from prophets then I can accept your argument.
I didn’t actually say that meteorites are the only source of iron, I said that iron can only have come from the remains of another star system. This is true no matter how you look at it.
In terms of requiring the intervention of God this is not what I am arguing about at all. I am stating the knowledge of such things ‘point’ or ‘indicate’ the presence of Divine. I am not making a case for ‘proof’, and here is the reason why.
We are told in our scriptures that:
a) This world is a deception - i.e. we will view it as cause and effect and attribute the effect of something to the cause whilst missing out that both the cause and effect are put in place by ‘permission’ of the Divine. We don’t say that “the knife cuts the bread” we say that “God gives permission to the knife to cut the bread” - there is no observation of the “permission” hence we miss that out in our conclusions.
b) We are told in our scriptures that we are in disadvantage - that God is Unseen and His Works are Unseen, rather we see the results of the Works as though they come about by themselves or as a result of each other. We say that sperm fertilizes the ovum, but we should be saying that God gives permission to the sperm and ovum to become fertilised to form a zygote.
Verily, God sustains each action with His express knowledge and total intervention. It’s not a matter of rolling a ball and letting it go. Rather it is more like making sure that the ball, floor, motion are constantly being Sustained together.
My argument can never lead to a necessity of God’s intervention or else it will become far too easy for us to believe. However, belief is something that has to be undertaken out of connections and parallels and insight and listening to an inner voice. It is not about hard proof - for sure if God showed us Himself we would be unable to resist and fall into worship of Him because that realisation will magentically draw us to immediate worship, but then there is no ‘test’ …
Anyway my references for the iron are below although a bit redundant:
I’ll show you my references:
And We also sent down iron in which there lies great force and which have many uses for mankind… (Qur’an, 57:25)
http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/nb.story/story_id/4655
http://www.machineryfaq.com/metal-forming/metal-forming-168.html
Supernovae are responsible for a large fraction of biologically important elements, including oxygen, carbon and iron found in plants and animals on Earth today.