Re: What do you believe you must believe to be a Muslim?
Psyah sahib,
this part of your post drew my attention. What is a fact? A fact is a reality that doesn't require a belief or faith. 2+2 =4 is a fact and accepting this fact is not a belief or faith. Our eyes (without external aid) need light to see things. It is an accepted fact and accepting this fact is not a belief. Belief/faith comes always when there is an element of doubt, something that cannot be proven scientifically. In matters of faith, inclination of heart is involved. If it is proved scientifically then it becomes fact that no one can deny. Belief in Allah came to us through prophets/messengers. people believed in them because of their good past and apparent goodness of the values they professed. We, the rational beings can ponder and think that this intricate universe must have intelligent creator/s but we cannot pinpoint that there is only one God and what He requires of us. for that, we needed the help of His prophets. I hope, I am making some sense.
Peace kchughtai sir
I hold partiality at the notion that to accept a fact, belief is not being invoked. It seems to be more logically consistent and terminologically more consistent to understand belief to be "acceptance". And I will discuss matters in that way - I will use the word "belief" in that way. To have certainty is the highest level of belief and that certainty does not have to be a true belief, which caters for the phenomenon of "being deluded".
The real contention can be illustrated is in the following:
Given your definition of belief ... and fact ... If we were to say that "it requires belief to accept God, but there is no belief required in accepting 1 + 1 = 2"
Then we would have to say that 1 + 1 = 2 is a fact and Existence of God is not a fact ... !!!
That presents a huge problem. It delineates the idea of "fact" from being something that is "true" (nominal, deductive) to merely something that is "objectively provable" ... I don't think a "fact" should be classed as something that is "objectively provable" because whenever we discuss matters of reality we must also cater for the "objectiveness" of that scenario and then we move in to wishy-washy statements like "nothing is real and everything is subjective" ...
Logically it can be shown that belief is the supergroup and all verdicts expressed by humans are contained within it. As stated earlier if we can't move past this point then we can't move at all.
My axiom is that "belief is inescapable in conscious beings" it is my a priori assumption ... When we say "This is a chair" while pointing at a chair we are in fact saying ... "It is my belief that: 'This is a chair'". We say it so often with so much certainty that it no longer requires the statement ... "It is my belief that" ... When we are trying to be courteous and careful our speech will bring back the statement ... "It is my belief that ..." or "I thought that" ... and so on. e.g.
Teacher: The capital of Australia is Sydney
Considerate Smart Student: But Miss, I thought that Canberra was the capital?!
My reduction in the previous post suggests both belief and disbelief are beliefs.
And it follows that "humans are believing entities" - That our ability to believe defines us. That is also the reason why I put the title of the thread this way too ... We can't talk about our belief system without first understanding the "act of belief" itself.
lai aiaiy!