I think we are not addressing the topic here. For the sake of argument, lets say we all agree that God exists, let's not bring his existence into the argument for a moment. But the question here is that believers say that God is the one who created this Earth, this galaxy, this universe, everything. But others say there is nothing available that even points, forget prove, that God had any hand in any creation. So, those who are arguing in his favor can they at least suggest something as to when, where, how did God "light up the bulb?" At which point do you think he kicked on the action? Any time frame you can give when God thought of having some fun with us? Not asking the exact month or year, even an estimate of say 10,000 years, 100,000 years, 500,000 years, whatever? Lets not get into vague answers as to we just know he did it, but something a little more academic that we can talk about or try to understand without just being told to believe it because it is. I genuinely want to know how people think about this because from where I look at it things look very different to me than what most people seem to believe.
b) When the Universe
c) Where the Universe
d) How the Universe
Answers:
Now the answers will differ on faith/religion. However, in Islam we have no problem in aligning with predominant scientific findings. I am happy to say many billions of years of our reckoning.
Where? Well we are told that the Universe is like a ring thrown in a desert, where the desert is like the footstool of God and footstool of God is like a ring thown in a desert compared to the Thrown of God. We are told that the universe was established over something like an ocean/water.
How - one such reference states that the universe was "thrown asunder" - in the Qur'an it mentions what is interpreted today as the Big Bang. Hence we support the Big Bang theory because it resembles the "How" in our Scriptures.
^ You say universe was created billions of years ago, is "like a ring thrown in a desert", and was "thrown asunder." All very fine, but again to my question where does God fit into all this? I know the easiest answer is it is He who did all this, but sorry to me that is a little too easy :).
Yes again you are right. Where does God fit into all this. Ok I shall tell you.
We are told that everything has been created by Allah (SWT) some things have been created from nothing, such as "The spirit of God" From this spirit all life has been taken.
We are told that God shares no part to His creation. He is the only One with the ability to Create something from nothing. Everything in effect is a sequence of events that take from other things. For example, the iron in my blood has been taken from the food, taken from the minerals, taken from the iron ore, taken from the rocks that landed in the solar system condensed and formed part of Earth. Science tells us that our star i.e. the Sun has never been critical enough to have produced 'iron' because this element is created from high nuclear reactions in super massive stars. The iron in our system must have come from the remains of another star system. Likewise in the Qur'an we are told that "iron" was "sent" to us. This information could only have been known by God in the times of Muhammad (SAW), today technology has allowed us to work this out.
Note also that only God could have made such as statement about throwing the universe asunder without context in the times that predate modern science.
Life source however is different it is not seen as obvious as the material world. Every living created thing shares from the universe around it, but the life source comes from a place that is hidden to science. Any more clarification needed I'll be happy to explain further.
That iron was "sent to us" is known not only from the 7th century or so but even to paganic Egyptian, Babilonic, Greek, and other ancient religions or people who have all referred to it as an "ore of the heavens." So, were those also all "true religions" just on the basis of that knowledge? In any case, now we know that meteorites (or the heavens) are not the only source of iron, but we have also learnt of the other sources or processes responsible for iron our Earth. Again, none requires the intervention of God to explain their existence.
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)
Supernovae are responsible for a large fraction of biologically important elements, including oxygen, carbon and iron found in plants and animals on Earth today.