Yes, worship is innate to us though peoples perspectives differ on what they perceive as powerful and most importantly in their cognition, what brings immediate satisfaction to their desires or motives. It is relative to what ones goal in life has become and hence forth all data gathering is serve that goal or worship it as well.
For instance, as muslims our ultimate goal is to transition though this biological existence in a way that pleases Allah SWT and hence forth our data gathering is focused on aspects which edge us closer to that goal.
For people with no belief in judgement or that this biological existence is transitionary, their disposition is to worship that which brings power to them, it may be money, influence, control of others, just dedicating themselves to natural cause or anything which finds some purpose in this world.
Christians for instance, who believe that their sins have been forgiven and purgatory is also temporary, find all the compelling reasons to service humanity rather than stake it for themselves. You’ll find a lot missionary work is concentrated in humantarian campaigns and institutions. They have convinced themselves about their eternal well-being and naturally with such patterns of thought ones efforts are focused on others and it is worship to them. Not to say that we as muslims should not be helping out humanity but with a different calling or intention.
For the one who does not believe in any form of retribution from God, his intuition is not inclined to gather data contrary to what he believes in. He will be a mercenary by nature. Depending on his experiences in life he may be bought for good or bad.
Scientists worship knowledge and talent. It leads to being atheistic or agnostic though if they do not realize that we have not been given all knowledge by Allah SWT. This is no way means that we should not seek knowledge as that would be contrary to the commandments of Islam.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
I like your observation that “Data gathering serves the purpose for the fulfilment of our goals”
As Muslims, therefore nature of our data is fundamentally different to the data of scientists which is going to be based necessarily on tangibility of the data and it will ignore those factors that instead of exposing even more beauty and complexity leading to even more questions, rather is busy trying to simplify the impossible.
For those who have no belief in their judgement are not necessarily the people who desire power, rather they move to do everything to satisfy their own desires ensuring there are no hurdles from others to come in their way. Hurdles will always come, so the ones who seek power, do so to remove those hurdles and those who do not seek power try to avoid those hurdles or are not too bothered about others subduing them and hence let themselves become subdued.
Another class of people exist which do not actively try to gather data at all. They are like animals and prevent cogent cognisance in themselves and simply dwell. Such people may gather data simply for when and where the next meal will come and what to do to mate with the next person. The people who seek power are in fact matured and advanced versions of such beings. Those who engage in science for power are beings that do so in an even more advanced manner. For sure some people will be undertaking philanthropic and charitable acts for no greater reason than self-fulfilment – sex and nourishment.
Even some religious movements try to achieve this end.
In the Qur’an we see that only those who submit to the Will of God are truly in a state of belief, not just the ones who say “we believe”
Which beings me back to your point which is that we may actually be doing the same thing all the others are doing, such as conservation work, charity, police, education, etc … but we do so not to fulfil personal hegemony over the world. But rather to declare that hegemony belongs only to God and we are here to serve Him. And we will lead by example to the people who do not realise this for them to conform without force to the same state of realisation.
You say, “Scientists worship knowledge and talent” and this is technically true for those people who are godless. However, where it concerns Muslims we should seek to empower ourselves with knowledge and talent so we can converse with scientists on their level so they can see the fundamental flaw in their self-praise based on their self-acclaimed purposes of life.
A scientist will inevitably conclude that we are advanced forms of animal, yet a philosopher will conclude that we need to be better than animals, because we experience a condition that makes us conscious of our existence. As an advanced form of animal we have tendency to justify the feudal and “survival for the fittest” mindsets, but as philosophers we see that we have undertaken better data gathering because we have observed that we “take care” of our weak and sick and we operate with wisdom rather than impulse. Some believers in evolution argue that humanity has declined or devolved by not maintaining the precepts of “survival of the fittest” and actually nurturing the sick. So it appears that uncomfortable data is either dismissed or creates new hypotheses in such people but they never question their basis which is “does God therefore exist?” they will rather produce sophisticated reasons for why something does not fit their model of life.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
I like your observation that “Data gathering serves the purpose for the fulfilment of our goals”
As Muslims, therefore nature of our data is fundamentally different to the data of scientists which is going to be based necessarily on tangibility of the data and it will ignore those factors that instead of exposing even more beauty and complexity leading to even more questions, rather is busy trying to simplify the impossible.
For those who have no belief in their judgement are not necessarily the people who desire power, rather they move to do everything to satisfy their own desires ensuring there are no hurdles from others to come in their way. Hurdles will always come, so the ones who seek power, do so to remove those hurdles and those who do not seek power try to avoid those hurdles or are not too bothered about others subduing them and hence let themselves become subdued.
Another class of people exist which do not actively try to gather data at all. They are like animals and prevent cogent cognisance in themselves and simply dwell. Such people may gather data simply for when and where the next meal will come and what to do to mate with the next person. The people who seek power are in fact matured and advanced versions of such beings. Those who engage in science for power are beings that do so in an even more advanced manner. For sure some people will be undertaking philanthropic and charitable acts for no greater reason than self-fulfilment – sex and nourishment.
Even some religious movements try to achieve this end.
In the Qur’an we see that only those who submit to the Will of God are truly in a state of belief, not just the ones who say “we believe”
Which beings me back to your point which is that we may actually be doing the same thing all the others are doing, such as conservation work, charity, police, education, etc … but we do so not to fulfil personal hegemony over the world. But rather to declare that hegemony belongs only to God and we are here to serve Him. And we will lead by example to the people who do not realise this for them to conform without force to the same state of realisation.
You say, “Scientists worship knowledge and talent” and this is technically true for those people who are godless. However, where it concerns Muslims we should seek to empower ourselves with knowledge and talent so we can converse with scientists on their level so they can see the fundamental flaw in their self-praise based on their self-acclaimed purposes of life.
A scientist will inevitably conclude that we are advanced forms of animal, yet a philosopher will conclude that we need to be better than animals, because we experience a condition that makes us conscious of our existence. As an advanced form of animal we have tendency to justify the feudal and “survival for the fittest” mindsets, but as philosophers we see that we have undertaken better data gathering because we have observed that we “take care” of our weak and sick and we operate with wisdom rather than impulse. Some believers in evolution argue that humanity has declined or devolved by not maintaining the precepts of “survival of the fittest” and actually nurturing the sick. So it appears that uncomfortable data is either dismissed or creates new hypotheses in such people but they never question their basis which is “does God therefore exist?” they will rather produce sophisticated reasons for why something does not fit their model of life.
Basically, a scientific theory will state what we should see in the world or universe if it is correct, and — more importantly — what we would see if it was proved wrong. We can then verify this. We cannot do the same with religion. You can see this with the way muslims and christians twist their scriptures to fit current scientific understanding.
Some believers in evolution argue that humanity has declined or devolved by not maintaining the precepts of “survival of the fittest” and actually nurturing the sick. So it appears that uncomfortable data is either dismissed or creates new hypotheses in such people but they never question their basis which is “does God therefore exist?”
Yes … there are some die hard believers of evolution who hold that “fitness” determines who will survive and who will not. They present examples of weak animals being allowed to die off and elderly being neglected and so on.
However, humans demonstrates abilities that oppose this and additionally we consider these things the height of humanity which is to protect the weak and nurture the elder. This attitude of the evolutionary atiests are hell bent for selfishness and pseudo-promote the ethos of ‘uncaring’ … when it is in their favour they use the arguments of mothers caring for the young, but at other times the rules are not always followed.
Some people however, argue that it could still be survival of the fittest through preservation of wisdom and experience can make us better … but this is the philosophical endeavours and today we believe that we are more intelligent than people of yesteryear so one of these positions must be an evolutionary regression rather than a progression. They get themselves in a twist when they hold too fast to the “survival of the fittest” rule especially when applied to humans.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
Interesting findings of science:
The idea behind the process of evolution is that we can reduce through a process of casting back cause and effect. Each cause being more and more fundamental and regularly occurring. The problems with evolution is that we do not progress as a race, rather we have highs and lows. Also, face value investigation shows some sort of progress, but on closer investigation there is so much complexity.
A cell was considered basic enough to explain how evolution could be true, but then with greater technology we realised that a cell is too complicated so we reduced it down to genes and amino acids then we reduced it down to the atomic scale. Then we had different problems that came up with respect to matter and energy and the universe and so on. Each time the pro-evolutionists try to show the simplicity of our basic premises, they open up a can of worms.
So far we still have not found the missing link between man and other primates. We believe we have and are getting closer, but to find it will mean a specimen needs to be fully sexually compatible with both or else the mutation can not demontrate this change.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
So fundamentally, the data gathering from a scientific aspect is intended to understand how we came to existence or by what means whereas data gathering from a religious perspective is not primarily focused on how we came to existence (though it is cast into the belief that God created us, and this belief does not rule out any scientific endeavours in our history and creation of this world) bur rather on now that we are here what is the purpose of our existence.
The data gathering from a religious perspective will create a different basis and hypotheses for that data gathering to a secular scientific data gathering process. So although the same set of phenomena can bring about the same conclusions it is not always going to be the case that one method will not negate the other. Rather one set of phenomena can be plausible for more than one hypothesis. And these hypotheses could be completely in disagreement with one another.
The unfortunate thing with modern scientific research is that data which either says nothing about the hypothesis or even seemingly negates it is often ignored. The reason being that most Western led research is based on findings rather than truth. The arrogance in society permeates through to the scientific level and people want to show how they were right rather than what is the truth. Faith based research should be better at doing a fair test provided the people are indeed searching for truth. Afterall it concerns them on a personal level rather than a professional level.
Logic and science dictates that to prove something true it needs to be given a falsification test, which if passed proves the idea and if fails means the idea is wrong. This language of focussing on negation rather than affirmation is Islamic. We say “La’ ilaha ilAllah” that there is NO god but Allah. The Qur’an brings its falsification test that if any one can bring a verse that compares to it then that will warrant the claims of it to be from other than Allah (SWT). Rather than finding ways to prove something we should always develop a theory and see what will be required to disprove it. We only need one piece of data to do this.
Science has fallen by the way side when it comes to archaeology and evolution in these domains we no longer seek to disprove our theories rather we are on the ongoing pursuit of finding the missing link. This missing link is one of a theory that is brought forward by a human being who did not present to the world a falsification test of that theory. Always ask a theorist for the falsification test that way you can determine whether the theory is true or not easily.
So what shall be the phenomena for which we produce the hypothesis. Shall it be the existence of God or the phenomena of our existence. I would prefer our existence since it is a phenomena of which both religion and science have a grasp of and laden with abundance of theories from both religious and scientific perspectives.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
USResident
Yes … to actually formulate an hypothesis should be done on grounds which are mutual. Randomness and Purpose are distinctly opposing ideas.
If I were to hypothesise I would bring into play the idea that "everything has a purpose, therefore concsious instigation is a requisite. The falsification test would be to find the one thing in nature which has no purpose and to follow to find anything which has a purpose that has come into existence as a matter of randomness through a process of likelihood and for that likelihood to be proven. What I am looking for is the mathematics behind the balance of the universe, how likely is it? If it is 50% or more … heck if it is 5% or more then I can accept we could have come here by chance.
Religion tells us to Know God by reflecting on creation so science and religion are aligned in this hypothesis. Note: We are not talking about intelligent design here. We are merely talking about anything of any given level of sophisitcation will have a purpose and seemingly simple things are integral in those purposes, giving them a purpose beyond their ‘personal’ purposes. i.e. they are like building blocks for the purpose of more complex structures and forms.
Also note that entropy with randomness tends towards disorder and chaos that the precursor of a form will be more complex than the forms that follow … decomposition is one such example. In time we become dust and everything has a half life.
What causes the randomness of parallel events to decrease the entropy in life for it to have been produced by randomness?
To clarify what I mean by purpose here is the definition:
“Anything which exists that cannot be obviously useful for anything other than its own individual life cycle, is found to be so” i.e. an element or trace of symbiotic nature, even when the obvious condition tells us otherwise. That two or more seemingly independent entities i.e. nothing to do with each other are useful with each other. When this happens they gain ‘purpose’ for one another.
Subhanallah! Sometimes its quite difficult to reply to your posts.
Randomness has its own purpose, which cannot be understood other than in hindsight, as per my observation thus far. Yet I would also state what appears random to us is actually bounded and controlled. For instance, the random event which originated the universe as per scientists was in our belief actually controlled by Allah SWT. Randomness is a perspective when it is out of ones control and incapability to predict one outcome from a finite set of possible outcomes. Amazingly, the beauty and power of Allah SWTs control in the creation of this universe is exhibited by scientific finds themselves, which state, any deviation from the precision of events which resulted in this universe would not have given rise to this universe. All other outcomes as per scientific data would have resulted in our non-existence.
All research strikes out chances of our existence other than what is quantified as the one random event which had the precision to result in us. So even 5% is a catastrophic percentage. So far there has been no mathematical model which supports a deviation which still could have resulted in the creation of the universe.
So if we hypothesize we have a purpose. The natural next phase of this hypothesis would be to determine, what is the purpose. The sheer complexity of things in this world inherently define the purpose of the simple building blocks of those complex organisms or systems. Much like you stated, beyond their personal purpose, they play a role in a bigger picture.
Islam is the antithesis of entropy in our social lives.
The last part of your posts needs more clarification, I am not sure what you intend to mean.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
I have never given this any thought. What I have understood is that randomness never really exists. Through the process of randomness taken to excessive levels people have seen an order … They call it the ‘Order out of Chaos’.
In fact the premise of the Chaos theory is that it is used as a model for simulating randomness whilst using deterministic principles. Such that the infinitive end result is known but the variations on the journey towards that point is subject to what we observe as randomness, then in time this behaviour becomes statistically predictable.
It joins back to what you say that ‘randomness has its own purpose’ such that the concept of randomness could disprove the existence of a Wise God who does nothing for the sake of it. Rather what we observe in our attempts to produce random events we must resort ultimately to use patterns and order to just model randomness. We can assume that true randomness exists, but we have never found that to be so. The greek symbol PI which represents the harmony between circumference and diameter of the same circle demonstrates a numerical figure which extends to a random array of digits to infinitum. However, we know that it represents something real. The diameter is given purpose by its circumference and the circumference by its diameter.
PI is a true discovery of the Law of Nature. That it can not be modelled exactly because it represents transcendental harmonies which we can fathom and realise, but when we try to explain without sophistication we fall short of what is actually happening. The simplicity of nature but the impossibility of defining it shows that something Wise has brought it into being.
This flows into what you state next …
I couldn’t have said it better …
Before I go on from here I’ll explain myself a bit. Entropy is about disorder and disorder is about randomness. Mechanically high entropy applies to a system that has decreasing useful energy to produce work. It is evidence that useful energy at least on the thermodynamic scale is born from low entropy systems which means the starting point to everything must be something extremely ordered.
Later I was defining what ‘purpose’ should mean to us. It is not enough to say that something contains a purpose for its own function, but rather a function can only be acquired from it if something else is already in place and vice-versa. Such that two completely independent things work so harmoniously together that it seems they were designed to be symbiotic, and that this particular function would otherwise be non-existent if these two things didn’t come together, this is evidence of ‘purpose’ and evidence against the precepts to the theory of evolution. But it is clear scientifically that things have purpose.
So we have concluded that everything has purpose … and now you want to formulate a new hypothesis which is to answer the question ‘what is our purpose?’
This is irrespective, because we know that some domains of science give (hypothesise) us a purpose, and yet so does faith. Our purpose according to science is “to survive” Our purpose according to faith is “to know God through worship”
Both give us a purpose and as previously explained we need not go any further because ‘purpose’ can only be borne out of something very Wise. Wisdom infers Life, and religion readily claims that God Attributes to Himself Life. To have purpose should mean that we have a God; it does not matter whether that purpose is to simply ‘survive’ or to ‘know God through worship’.
To prove that our purpose is to survive and not to know God will not negate that we have a Wise God. One will simply be the theory of ‘intelligent design’ and the other will be ‘traditional religion’.
That is why atheistic evolutionists dislike the theistic evolutionists it is because they argue that we all have a design purpose and it is something that atheists cannot possibly accept. Rather they use sophistic reasoning fallaciously to conclude that “we don’t have purpose but we give purpose to ourselves”
Because atheistic science is now out of the equation and theistic evolutionism and religion now begin to depart from one another we need to analyse the two hypotheses independently and see what happens as well as explore the possible hybrids of these approaches.
Rather ‘theistic evolutionism’ from the onset covers those orders which profess no duty bound obligation of the existent to the Pre-Existent, whereas religion obviously does require this duty. Religion is often criticised for negating the gradual and stage-by-stage development of the Universe and life in general. And the ‘theistic evolutionists’ will even argue that the ‘neo-Darwinian’ theories are in fact true, because they say this is what is proven or demonstrated. They make little effort to distinguish between the concept of ‘Creation’ and ‘Evolution’ and often reduce God to a ‘force’. There are some religious people who believe that the world was made in a 24 hour period, who are also usually the same as those who believe that Adam and Eve were created and did not appear through evolution. On the other hand many people who believe in the gradual development of the universe also apply their gradualism on mankind and life in general. Some theistic evolutionists even believe in alien intervention in the development of humanity. There are those people who endow their beliefs purely on scripture, but there are also those who primarily base their beliefs on scripture but view them from the prism of science and vice-versa. Some people are religious apologetics and try to make their scriptures conform to common understandings; others do not let any common understandings permeate their beliefs.
In our analysing we need to decide which are right, which are acceptable, which are conditionally acceptable and which are wrong.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
Sorry I have not been able to keep up. You know work, family and studies as well.
Many good points in your post to carry forward regarding formulating a hypothesis about our purpose of existence.
One slight diagreement I might have is where you stated that according science our purpose is to survive. I would tend to say that based on science it is described more as a disposition. Different approaches, ideologies or theories are given a purpose to amplify that disposition.
Fundamentally, science and religion would differ on our purpose in that:
1 - Science says our disposition has allowed us to survive and evolve into the species we are today through evolution.
2 - In religion, our disposition to survive has nothing to do with our creation at all. We were created distinct as a complete human species. Our disposition to survive though has definitely sustained our species.
So expanding on point 1, science does not give us a purpose but rather we use science purposedly to enhance our survival chances over any other species and amongst ourselves as well. So we have given science a purpose.
And point 2, first point 1 does not conflict with point 1 and I would tend to state that it is coherent and innate with part of our objective in this world. Though religion gives purpose to this existence for the sake of the next life and this is where we need to know and worship God has to be vital. Science does not have a hypothesis for any purpose of our existence which forms a symbiotic relationship with the next life whereas religion gives purpose to our life in this world through its symbiotic relationship with the next life.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
Though you have praised my post I think your post here was a bit premature with respect to the entire thread. Please do not derail the discussion here as it has been happening for a while and quite involved at this point. If you wish to contribute constructively, go through the entire thread before posting so not to spoil the vibe.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
Though you have praised my post I think your post here was a bit premature with respect to the entire thread. Please do not derail the discussion here as it has been happening for a while and quite involved at this point. If you wish to contribute constructively, go through the entire thread before posting so not to spoil the vibe.
I apologize for my immaturity. I posted that before i read anything in the thread.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
I may need to clarify myself when I said that science gives us our purpose to survive. Rather as you say it is a disposition but it is because of that disposition many scientists assert that it is necessary to give oneself a purpose which is in accord with what nature has been doing i.e. making those things survive which are fittest to do so.
Although knowledge of our purpose in religion may come before the realisation i.e. going through the steps, and in science a purpose is decided after some ground work is done. It does fall back on to what I said earlier.
Many athestic scientists believed in fascism (and hence made it their purpose to be supremist) because it reflected the idea of survival of the fittest.
In a similar way Islam tells us of our dispositions … the fitrah and the nufs, one is to be aligned with the other is to be subdued to become subservient to the benchmark.
Satanism has spawned from the Christian belief of our disposition being naturally evil and that we need a saviour. Satanism used this idea to create many converts to its cause because it suggested that we should not rebel against our disposition but conform to it. It gave them the purpose to be hedonists really.
This is where it can get quite complex. Religion at least in its unadulterated form does not put any emphasis on ‘trying to survive’. Martyrdom and Sacrifice have these particular nuances. Religion also caters for the idea of good people who die young and evil people who live till old and vice-versa. Dominant science tries not to define things in terms of good and evil.
What I am going to say next is based on the imaginary perception of the world that x and y happens therefore z happens. We may see patterns of what survive and what do not, but there are things that do not fit this model. Some things which are useless survive and some things which are superior die off. The link that Slickstar gave is ironic because scientists do the same thing. They will ignore those things that do not fit the pattern. And at the end of the day we as scientists look for patterns, when we find one that is quite predictable we make theories and then the theories become laws, but every law has its set of parameters. Such Newtonian physics do not apply in the sub-atomic realms, Einsteinian physics do not apply in the sub-sub-atomic scale and so on. Although scientists are in search for the one thing that will explain all things what has given them the zeal to search for this one thing? Why does it have to be one thing?
Islam clearly asserts that this universe is set up as though there is cause and effect and duration and may be evolution and so on. Religion obliges us to believe that although this world appears to have come here in stages we are open to the idea that it:
a) Could have been made to look that way, but really it is a simple creation event literally taken from scipture, or
b) If God so chose to make this complexity in one sweep He is Powerful enough to do so and hence cannot be ruled out, despite the findings from science.
The point being that religion at this stage is more scientific because it is entertaining a wider arena of possibility.
Re: The similarity of scienctific method and faith
This seems to agree with what I said that we have given science a purpose in pursuit of course of nature though the fallacy in the argument is that nature is not about the survival of the fittest.
Out nufs is the disposition which forms part of the survival of the fittest theory. When we let it run amok as you said it becomes our hedonistic personality rather than purpose.
Veracious.
I like the cause and effect assertion because it blends so well with predestination and fate in Islam.
If taken as a simple creation event, then the cause would be Gods will to create it. Though the event s per Quran happened in stages or progressed in stages.
The second point is possible though contradictory to what even we know from religious scriptures of our own, six periods is what we know. Though those six periods may be relative to the millions and billions of years science predicts.
