Abdur-Raheem Green Language: English | Format: PDF | Pages: 51 | Size: 12 MB
Who is the man in the red underpants?
What does he want and why are his pants red and not pink? Did he really
get his red underpants from Agent Provacateur and what does he want
anyway?
None of these questions are dealt with in
this book! Rather this book asks you to think about how you would deal
with the man in the red underpants. It will take you on a journey in
which you will encounter some startling conclusions. If you believe in
unbelievable things without proof, then put this book down now, and if
you think that you’re a thinker, think again!
The man in the Red Underpants will make sure your life is never the same again…
Chapter 1:
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
I’m pretty sure you’re not going to like
this. Probably not one bit. It talks about all sorts of things that a
lot of us spend a lot of time trying to avoid. Like death! Yes, that’s
right, death. Death, judgement, hellfire and paradise (or is it all pie
in the sky?), the meaning of life and of course, the big one – is there
really a God, or is it all a delusion? Just the sort of things you’d
try your utmost to avoid thinking about. And what has this got to do
with the man in the red underpants anyway?
I want you to come with me on a journey.
It’s not a long one, but on the way we are going to encounter some very
interesting and probably scary things, and things that you won’t want to
believe even though they make sense. Some of you are chickening out
already; some of you will put this down and not even finish it, and some
of you will turn you noses up in disgust, and that is very, very sad
because you’ll miss out on the most important thing in your life ever!
There are some of you who will read the
whole thing and perhaps even agree with it, but never get round to doing
anything about it, and that is both really sad and really bad. Well, I
told you this is going to have stuff you won’t like! But somewhere, some
of you will see it all through. You’ll think a little, or a lot, and
then you’ll do something truly amazing with your life, you’ll accept the
inevitable conclusions of reason, take a deep breath (at least
mentally) and decide to make a commitment that will transform you in
wonderful ways. As scary as it seems, and once you do that, things will
make even more sense.
OK, enough of the hype, let’s get down to
the nitty gritty. Let’s begin the journey and step aboard our vehicle;
reason and common sense.
What would you do if a man in a pair of red underpants came knocking on your door saying that he’d come to read the gas meter?
Yes, I am serious, what would you do?
Actually, what you actually would do is not so important here as what
process you would use and what faculties you would employ to come to a
decision about this man and his claim. Would you believe him without
thinking and let him into your house? Just ‘have faith?’ Or would you
think about the situation, ask some questions and apply reason? I’m
pretty sure it’s the last one. Even if you told him to “Get lost you
weirdo!”, you’d use reason, logic and common sense to make sense of the
man in red underpants, just as we do for most things that happen in our
lives.
Now, before we go any further I need you
to agree with me on one thing. If you don’t agree with me on this,
there’s isn’t much point in going any further. We need to agree that the
world we live in is real and you and me and everything around us really
does exist and is not the product of a computer generated illusory
world, or some dream that you happen to be in. Now I know that I can’t
actually prove this, and that it really is possible that all we see
around us is a dream or an illusion but how does that help us? If we
think THAT, then we could never make sense of anything, and even if we
did accept that, we’d still use our reason to try and make sense of it
and would still inevitably have to accept what we see as being real in
some sense.
So, if you’re with me on this; that the
world is real and that what we see, smell, touch, hear, and taste is
real. That our senses send information to our brain and we use our mind
to make sense of what is going on, then let’s use this process to make
sense of this life, world, universe and everything.
Now, there are some things we might call
‘universals’ because just about everybody as far as we know would agree
on them. In fact, these ideas are so basic they are part of what makes
us human, and if someone didn’t agree to it we’d probably think they
were mad. For example, the statement “part of something is less than the
whole” is a universal. It’s common to all humans, that’s why we call it
‘common’ sense. It’s so obvious it doesn’t need explaining. Agree with
me so far? OK. Here is another…’something doesn’t come from nothing’.
And how about ‘order doesn’t spontaneously arise from chaos’?
What is there in the totality of human
experience that would lead us to believe that something comes from
nothing or that order just spontaneously arises from chaos?
Well that’s right! Nothing. Actually what
we consistently experience is that where there is order, form and
systems, something has imposed the order, the form and systems. The more
complex and ordered the systems, the more functional the form, the
greater the level of intelligence behind it.
So here are two truths we can use to make
sense of the world, the universe and life. Universal human experience
tells us that when we find things working according to systems, laws and
patterns, something has made those systems, laws and patterns. That is
why an archaeologist can find a piece of pottery in the earth and be
sure and certain that some people, whom he has never seen, made this
piece of pottery. In fact, he might be able to tell us a whole range of
things about those people, their culture and state of technology from
this one piece of pottery. He knows that this was designed, not as a
product of some random movements of the earth, sun and natural forest
fire that somehow came together to produce this piece of baked clay
Perhaps it is possible this might have happened, but it’s not likely.
In fact, the more that person can see of this pottery the more unlikely
this possibility seems and the more certain he or she would be of its
being designed on purpose (if they even had any doubt in the first
place!)
Let’s take another example of something
most of us have and use on a regular basis: a mobile phone. Your mobile
phone is composed of a few basic elements. Plastic, glass, silicon for
the chip, and some precious metals. Plastic comes from oil, and glass
and silicon from sand. So basically what you are holding in your hand is
oil and sand. Now, what if I told you that I was walking along in the
desert of Arabia (lots of oil and sand) and picked up a mobile phone
which I found lying there… a product of billions of years of random
events? The wind blew, the sun shone, the rain fell, lightning struck,
the oil bubbled, the camel trod and after millions and millions of years
the mobile phone formed itself. And naturally I pick it up, push the
call button…”Hi, Mom!”
Is there a chance that this could have
randomly formed itself through natural processes? However remotely
possible, most of us would simply not accept this as a reasonable
explanation.
Why then would we accept such an
explanation for our universe and the life within it? Even if we accept
evolution as a process, the idea that life evolved merely as a series of
random events is difficult to accept as a reasonable explanation. Even
the most basic human cell is more complicated than a mobile phone! At
least the theory of evolution attempts to offer some explanation of how
this might have happened, but the idea that the universe is a product
of some random events has no comparable explanation, and the laws,
systems and forms that shape the universe are actually much more complex
than those that govern biological life!
Let’s take the example of our earth and
solar system. The earth rotates on its axis once every twenty-four
hours. Imagine the earth was spinning really slowly. A day or night is
say 30 or 40 years long instead of 24 hours. One part of the earth’s
surface would be exposed to sunlight for that time, and the other in
darkness. So the earth’s surface would be both super heated and super
cooled. Or, if we were fractionally (in cosmological terms) closer to
the sun or further away, it would be too hot or too cold. Or, if the
composition of the gases in the atmosphere was not exactly the right
blend of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen, or if there was no ozone
to filter out the harmful effects of the sun’s radiation, without these
optimal conditions it is difficult to see how life could exist.
When we look at the Big Bang theory that
explains the origins of the universe, one might fairly ask “since when
do explosions form intricate and balanced systems and complex life
forms?” Yet, that is what some people propose happened with the universe
and the Big Bang! One might respond that this is a very simplistic
approach but it just so happens that science too is suggesting that the
laws that govern the universe are so fine tuned that life could not
exist without this degree of fine tuning.
This can be observed in what are called
the constants of nature, of which there are quite a few, but let’s
concentrate on four of the most well known forces: the strong nuclear
force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and gravity.
Two of these, the strong and weak electromagnetic forces, are
responsible for the production of carbon, the element upon which all
known life is based. The forces cooperate in such a way as to create an
equilibrium of energy levels, which enables the production of carbon
from the fusing of three helium atoms. For three helium atoms to collide
and create carbon is very unlikely because under normal circumstances,
the energies would not match up and the three helium atoms would come
apart before they had time to fuse into carbon. But if there is a
statistically unusual match of the energies, then the process is much
faster. The slightest change to either the strong or weak
electromagnetic forces would alter the energy levels, resulting in
greatly reduced production of carbon and an ultimately uninhabitable
universe.
Consider also the strength of gravity.
After the Big Bang billions of years ago the matter in the universe was
randomly distributed. There were no planets, galaxies or stars, just
atoms floating around in the dark void of space. As the universe began
to expand, gravity pulled ever so gently on the atoms, gathering them
into clumps that eventually became stars and galaxies. What is important
is that the force of gravity had to be just right. If gravity was a bit
weaker, the atoms would have been so widely distributed that they would
never have been gathered into galaxies, stars and planets. If the force
of gravity was a bit stronger, the atoms would have been pulled
together into one single mass and then the Big Bang would have simply
become the Big Crunch. The strength of gravity has to be just right for
stars to form. So what is ‘just right’? Well, imagine your weight was
heavier or lighter by one billionth of a gram! That’s the sort of
fraction of difference we are talking about for the universe to be so
different that there would be no galaxies, stars, planets or life. Makes
shedding a few kilos seem simple, doesn’t it? It’s strange how
intelligent, educated humans can’t seem to shed a bit of weight in order
to live longer but the universe can seem to organise itself into the
optimal conditions for life through coincidence!
And that’s not all! Let’s take a closer
look at the universe’s rate of expansion after the Big Bang. If the rate
of expansion was greater and the early universe expanded faster, the
matter in the universe would have become so diffused that gravity could
never have gathered it into stars and galaxies. If the rate of
expansion was slower, gravity would have overwhelmed the expansion and
pulled all the matter back into a black hole. If the rate of expansion
one second after the Big Bang had been slower by even one part in a
hundred thousand million million, the universe would have re-collapsed
before it ever reached its present size! In fact, the expansion rate was
just right, so that stars could exist in the universe.
Another example of this fine tuning is
the density of the universe. In order for it to grow in a
life-sustaining manner, the universe must have maintained an extremely
precise overall density. The precision of density must have been so
great that a change of one part in 1015 (i.e. 0.0000000000001%) would
have resulted in a collapse, or big crunch, occurring far too early for
life to have developed, or there would have been an expansion so rapid
that no stars, galaxies or life could have formed.
Remember our mobile phone in the desert?
Isn’t it much more reasonable to conclude that the universe and life are a result of wilful intelligent design?
After all, what are the options?
Could it really have just come from
nothing? And if that is the case, then why not apply that to everything
else in life? The man in the red pants, maybe he just spontaneously
appeared!
Could it have created itself? Well we
just don’t attribute to the collection of stars and galaxies that we
call the universe the ability to design and systemise. Surely that needs
intelligence and will?
So if common sense and reason point so
conclusively towards the existence of intelligent and wilful design,
what other conclusions can we come to through the use of reason?
Well, one conclusion one might certainly
reach is that the nature of the source of this intelligence and will
must be different in nature from the universe it created.
Why is that? Because if it was the same,
then all we would have is more of the same i.e. more creation, and then
one might rightly ask, so what created that? Surely something more
intelligent and wilful, and then of course we would ask the same
question about that…what created it? And we would go on and on forever
looking for the intelligence and will behind the intelligence and will,
a creator creating a creator creating a creator ad infinitum! There is a
good reason why things can’t be that way, and this is best explained
through an example.
Imagine a sniper who has acquired his
designated target and radios through to HQ to get permission to shoot.
HQ however, tells the sniper to hold on while they seek permission from
higher up. So the guy higher up seeks permission from the guy even
higher up and so on and so on.
If this keeps going on, will the sniper ever get to shoot the target? Of course not!
He’ll keep on waiting while someone is
waiting for a person higher up to give the order. There has to be a
place or person from where the command is issued, a place where there is
no higher up.
So our example illustrates why there is a
rational flaw in the idea that there might be creators creating
creators ad infinitum… We can’t have creators creating creators forever,
or else, just as the sniper will never shoot, the creation will never
get created. But the creation is here. It exists. So we can dismiss the
idea of an infinite regression of causes as being an irrational
proposition.
So what is the alternative?
The alternative is a first cause. An uncaused cause!
We could conclude that the nature of the
intelligent and wilful force behind the universe, life and everything
must have a different nature from the creation, and as we have seen,
there are compelling reasons to do so.
So…if the creation is needy, the Creator should be self-sufficient.
And if the creation is temporary, the Creator should be eternal.
And if the creation is confined by space and time, the Creator should be free of space and time.
And if the creation is common, the Creator should be unique.
And it follows reasonably that there
could only be one unique, eternal, self-sufficient being unconfined by
space and time, for if there were more than one then these attributes
could not apply. How could there be two or three eternal beings, or two
beings unconstrained by space or time?
This is why it makes so much sense to believe in One Unique Eternal and Self-Sufficient Creator.
Common sense and reason lead easily, or
perhaps even inevitably, to the conclusion that the universe has been
created by a transcendent being unlike in essence to anything that we
know.
This of course makes it difficult to
understand much more about this Creator through reason, and that’s why
some people stop right there.
But our journey doesn’t end here, in fact
in many ways it only begins. We still have so many questions
unanswered, so many issues unresolved.
Chapter 2
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Why is there suffering in the world?
If there is a Creator, why does this Creator let bad things happen?
What is the purpose of life?
Why are we here and what is it all for, and where are we going?
Is there life after death?
Is there some way to know more about this Creator?
It’s not really surprising or
extraordinary to expect that the One who created this Universe would
give some guidance in such matters, since the Creator has provided a
means to satisfy every need that we have, both physical and emotional.
We feel hunger and need nutrients to sustain us, and all the means to
provide those nutrients are there. We thirst, and there is drink, we
need clothes and means exists to protect ourselves from the elements,
and so on. We also need companionship, love and support and we have
parents and families and live in societies that fulfil those needs. It
makes sense that the One who has provided for all of these needs would
also provide the answers to such deep, pressing and important issues.
In fact, in some ways those deeper
questions are even more important than the physical and emotional
issues, since they define our very reason for being. Evidence shows that
when people have no clear and convincing direction and purpose in life
as individuals and societies, they become profoundly dissatisfied,
confused and unhappy. So the need to know why we are here and where we
are going and what this is all for is as important to us as food, drink
and sex!
There may be many possible answers to
these questions, and looking at the multiple different ideas that have
come from the human mind, it would seem that reason might not be the
best thing to use to find the answers to these perplexing questions
because what we want are not just any answers, but the right answers.
The problem here is that this is in fact an area where reason doesn’t do
very well.
As an example, imagine someone took you
to a strange building. You’re standing at the closed front door, and
that person asks you, “What’s behind that door, inside the building?”
How much could you know through reason? You might be able to guess some
things, like perhaps there being tables and chairs and lights and
taps…but you could be wrong. It could be completely empty, or completely
full or…well, almost anything. So how could you know, how could you
reach certainty about what is behind that door? Well of course you could
go in and see it with your own eyes, but what if that was not possible?
How, then, could you come to know what is inside?
Well, one way is that someone who has
been inside tells you, or even a person who knows someone who has been
inside tells you. But the question here is, how can I trust that man?
How can I be sure that woman is telling the truth?
It’s the same with these big questions;
the purpose of life, why is there suffering, is there life after
death…what is behind the door? It is hidden, unseen and unknown. Reason
can’t come to any definitive answers, nor is there any reason to
believe that intuition, or just ‘feeling it’, would do any better.
We can only get any degree of certainty when someone we have good reason to trust tells us.
Of course we still need reason. It’s only
that it doesn’t work so well here as a direct source of knowledge about
these matters. We still need reason to figure out who to trust.
We’re back to the man in the red pants! Why should I believe or reject his claim?
Religions generally are making quite a
special claim. The claim is that they have a message from the Creator,
and often a message that is supposed to be exclusive to that religion.
So it’s a case of: ‘I’m right and everyone else is wrong!’ Not that this
claim is in and of itself a problem from the point of view of reason.
After all, if this Wise Creator did decide to send us a message it would
make sense for it to be a consistent one, and since different religions
make some contradictory claims, they can’t all be right! No, the
challenge here is deciding which one, if any is right. Instead of one
person claiming they’ve come to read the gas meter there are seven!
All is not lost. You see, looking at all
those people gathered at your door, by using the same process of reason
there are some things you can easily use to pick out who really is the
one entitled to read the gas meter. For example, he or she might have
some I.D. and a uniform with the name of the gas company to whom you pay
the bill to, and probably a device to read the meter. In the same way
there are some signs we can use to distinguish the true religion from
the false.
Since this is such an emotive issue it
might be worth taking a little time to reflect on the sorts of
inappropriate means testing that we might sometimes apply. This can be
something like: ‘which one looks like me and is from my race?’ Would you
use that to decide who comes into your house to read the meter? After
all, criminals come in all races and colours as do gas meter readers.
How about: ‘Let me just feel who the right one might be, and then I’ll
just believe it enough for it to be true’. No! I thought not.
Well how about the one who makes a really
good offer, like “If you have faith in me as the gas meter reader you
can have free gas forever!” Tempting, but unlikely!
Or maybe just pick the one who looks
something like the guy that used to come knocking on your parents’ door
sometimes (even though they never even had gas…hmmm!)
I know how about the one who looks smartest and with the most money? Thought not!
The point being here is that when it
comes to religion you need to dismiss certain ideas. For instance, like
merely following whatever your ancestors believed just because it seems
familiar, or because you love them so much or can’t imagine how they
could have been wrong! I’m sure that all of you do some things, if not
many things, differently from your parents. So how is it that they could
be wrong about those things and not about religion?
There is simply no compelling reason to
assume that whatever your parents and ancestors believed was the truth,
and it also does not make any reasonable sense just to ‘believe’ and
take a leap of faith without any sort of reasonable justification. And
“what sort of reasoning would lead one to conclude that the true
religion should make you rich, or that by merely believing in a
particular person or thing you will get eternal life? Of course, one of
the favourite reasons for justifying a choice of religion is that
someone started following this religion, it changed their life and
they’re happy! This actually does make some sense, since there are some
good reasons to believe that that is what the true religion should do,
but the problem here is that lots of other people make the same claim
about their different religious experiences. It seems that we have been
created to be religious. It’s part of our nature. If we don’t follow one
of the standard religions we’ll soon invent one! So some religion will
always make us happier than none. So again, just claiming your religion
is true because it changed your life can’t be on its own a sound
criterion, because then other religions must also be true because they
too have changed peoples’ lives. In fact, even someone who has decided
to believe that there is no Creator at all might make the same claim
that he or she used to follow a religion and now they don’t, and they
are more happy and free! As the saying goes, what’s good for the goose
is good for the gander. If it’s true for one it must be true for the
other also.
So these are all mere claims. Claims need to be proven.
So true religion, (if there is one!)
should have some I.D. It should have some markers through which and by
which we can know that its origin is from the Creator.
So what tests could we apply?
Chapter 3
THE TEST OF TEACHINGS
The first test, and probably the best and most convincing, very soon leaves us with few options.
What exactly does it say about the
Creator? Which religion teaches that there is One Unique Creator whose
nature is different from the creation: One, Eternal, Self-Sufficient,
Transcendent Creator?
It’s not my intention here to criticise
and mock various religions, since all religions teach and encourage a
common range of morals and values. They all have their various strengths
and weaknesses. Rather, the purpose is just to examine them in the
light of this simple and universally understandable criterion.
In the light of this we have, perhaps
controversially, only three real contenders: Judaism, Zoroastrianism and
Islam. Christians might claim that they have a right to be included in
this category, but at least from the position of normal Christian belief
it must join every other religion in compromising or distorting this
concept of the Unique Creator in one way or another.
For example, Hinduism generally has a
pantheistic concept of god. This is the idea that everything is God. The
universe, earth, moon, Mars, trees, animals and us, are all God.
How can we reasonably understand and
justify such a claim? If we mean by ‘God’, the Creator, then this is
saying the creation created itself, and the creation is the Creator.
How does this explain the ordering of a finite universe, and what
rational evidence is there to support such a claim? This is really like
saying the universe created itself. But if it was not there in the
first place how could it have created itself?
Also, we don’t ascribe to the universe
the ability to order and systemise. It is not one of its qualities or
attributes. The universe is made of stars and galaxies, and these
themselves are in need of a Creator. Since they need an organiser
individually, they also need it collectively! A collection of needy
things does not somehow become self-sufficient. A country full of
starving people is not any more likely to be able to feed itself than an
individual starving person!
Christianity shares a similar problem. Of
course many Christians would put forward the same arguments for the
existence of the Creator as I have already put forward, but then go on
to say that Jesus, a limited, finite, needy being, was God. The problem
here is clear. How rationally can anything be two complete opposites at
the same time? How can the finite also be infinite at the same time? How
can something be self-sufficient and needy, eternal and temporary, both
common and unique, one and many all at the same time?
This is rather like saying, for example,
that a circle became a square but still remained a circle. One could
conceive of the idea of taking the line of a circle and forcing it into
the shape of a square, but of course it then simply stops being a
circle. Or one could put the circle in the square or the square in the
circle, but it can’t be both a square and a circle at the same time.
This is by definition an impossibility, and you can never bring a
reasoned argument for an impossibility. So this is a claim that can
never be proven. The biggest problem is that it contradicts the reasoned
arguments for the existence of the Creator in the first place since if
one created, finite, needy being could be the creator, why not another
and another and another? How can you rationally defend such a belief
against pantheism, for example?
The response to this is often “well, God
can do anything”. This, of course is a claim about God, and claims about
God, like anything else, need to be proven. It’s also a statement that
is fraught with problems. For example, one might ask “Can God stop
existing?” or “Can God do something evil?”
There are two usual responses to such a
question. Either: “No, He can’t”, which contradicts what the Christians
previously said about God being able to do anything, or “Yes, He can if
He wanted to but God never would do anything evil because the nature of
God is good.”
Why then is this true of God’s goodness
but not His other attributes? Exactly the same criterion applies to God
being One, Eternal and Self-Sufficient. Just as it is not in the nature
of the good God to do evil, also it is not in the nature of the
Eternal, Sell Sufficient Creator to become a temporary and needy
creation. So the claim that the Creator became creation and still
remained the Creator is a claim that can never be proven, since it is by
definition an impossibility, and this applies to any religion that
makes such a claim about the Creator. This also dispenses with most of
what Hindus and pagans believe since they make similar claims about the
Creator being incarnated as some created being.
Some Christians might claim that they
don’t consider Jesus as God, but as God’s Son. The problem here is what
is meant by saying “God’s Son”? A human son is human like his mother
and father, so is God’s Son also God? If so, we are back where we
started and we have the same problem as before. Also a son is a product
of a sexual act. So did God have sex? Clearly this would contradict
everything we know so far about God being unlike the creation. Well
perhaps God sort of adopted Jesus as a son? This also makes no sense,
since you can only adopt something as a son which is like you. For
example, if someone had a pet fish called Flappy and said: “This is my
son”, no one would take it seriously You might love it like a son, it
may eat with you and have a room in the house and perhaps you might even
get some adoption papers, but the fish is a fish and you are human. The
two are not alike, and we know the Creator is not like anything in the
Universe. In fact, we are more like fish than we are like the Creator.
We are limited, finite, needy beings and so are fish, whereas the
Creator is the eternal and self-sufficient. In fact, the Creator must be
far removed from having a son, either literally or symbolically, except
perhaps in the very metaphorical sense that our parents care for, guide
and nurture us and so does the Creator. However, this term would apply
to all creatures, not just humans, let alone just one human.
As for Buddhism, well the Creator doesn’t
really get a look in. This leaves Buddhism more like a philosophy than a
religion, and this comes with its own issues, namely that explanations
for the purpose of life, the reason for suffering, and the big unknown
of the afterlife are the ideas of a man, not God. What we really need is
something definitive, and certainty can only come from the Knower of
the unseen, who is the Creator of the unseen. Everything else is
speculation.
There are a few other religions that one
might mention. Sikhism is similar to Buddhism in the sense that it
doesn’t claim to be of divine origins, at least not directly. The
founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, took what he thought were the best parts
of Hinduism and Islam and amalgamated them to form his own way. That is
something many of us might be tempted to do in the face of such choice,
but there is a simple rational problem here. If we agree that there is
actually a revelation and message from the Creator, then how could we
rationally choose to abandon the Creator’s guidance and follow something
else or presume to mix it up with something else, unless of course we
could establish that this is what the Creator actually wants us to do?
One might be able to justify that from Hindu ideas, but it would be very
hard from the point of view of Islam or Judaism, for example.
We’ve already applied one test to see if
the claim of a religion being from the Creator is valid or not: Does it
agree with the rational basis through which we can understand that
there is a single, unique, eternal and self-sufficient Creator who is
distinct and separate from the Creation? Are there any other criterion
that we might apply to shorten our list of candidates?
Chapter 4
THE TEST OF UNIVERSALITY
Well, perhaps there are a few other tests
we could apply to see if the I.D. is valid or not. One of them that
makes some sort of sense is the idea of universality. What is meant by
this is that this message from the Creator should be for everybody. As
long as humans generally have the rational capacity to understand the
reasons for the Creator’s existence and to actually ask the deep and
profound questions about life, death, the universe and everything, it
seems unreasonable that the Creator would only give guidance to one
select group of humans and leave everyone else out. Of course the
Creator might have very good reasons for choosing a select group to
carry and follow these wise instructions, just as there might be good
reasons to choose to give the message to one outstanding person rather
than speak to everyone individually Even so, it begs the question that
if we are not one of that select group, what are we supposed to do? What
happens to us? All this then becomes sort of irrelevant. It seems
strange that the Creator, who has provided for every human the means to
fulfil every need, doesn’t provide the means to fulfil what is
psychologically, mentally, and spiritually the greatest need, which are
the answers to the big questions!
That pretty much eliminates Judaism.
Judaism is great if you are born to a Jewish woman, not so great if you
aren’t. Although quite a few of us tend to think in some way that our
country, race, tribe, town, or football team is the best (or at least
will be some day), most of us would find it pretty hard to stomach the
notion that unless you are born into a certain race or tribe you haven’t
got a hope of getting to the eternal bliss of paradise when you die,
and that the wise guidance of the Creator is only for them and not for
you. So even if it was true, then most of us would have to dismiss it as
irrelevant anyway! There are a few other reasons why Judaism might
reasonably be discounted, but this is not the time for it.
I need us to stop here for a brief interlude.
Now I did warn you right at the beginning that you weren’t going to like this!
Perhaps I should have warned you a bit
more that the conclusions of this rational approach might mean going
completely against your desires and the things that you think you want
in life. Perhaps I should have warned you that you might actually hate
the truth, and if you’re that kind of person who thinks your life’s
alright, and I have everything I want anyway..well, I could warn you
that there are lots of reasons why things might not stay like that for
you for long. But then if you’re that sort of person, you probably
wouldn’t really listen anyway. So here it is.
WARNING!
What follows is only for people who are
really ready to put prejudice aside, to think a little deeply and
follow the most reasonable conclusion.
So far things have been easy going. What
follows is going to be a bit of a rough ride when it comes to the sort
of decisions and conclusions you need to make. I’m not trying to put you
off. Really I’m not, because it will be well worth the effort. After
all, was there anything really worth having that didn’t take some hard
work to get? Well, the conclusions I am leading you to here will take
some effort to follow up. In fact, for some it will take a momentous
effort.
The hard work here is not physical, or
even mental in the sense of having to think a lot. If you’ve agreed to
use reason and common sense to come to your conclusions, and if you are
ready to take the most reasonable option and that’s all that matters to
you, I reckon you’ll be fine. Some of you won’t. Some of you reading
this might even agree with everything and then just keep on living the
way you always did…or at least you’ll try. I say try because you won’t
be able to, and I speak from experience. What follows is going to lead
you to a conclusion that for some might come as a shocking truth. Others
might have suspected it already. One thing is for sure, once you know
the truth your life can never be the same. It will always be with you.
However hard you want to escape you can’t run away from yourself.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
So back to where we left off…
That pretty much leaves us with two contenders. Zoroastrianism and Islam.
There are a couple of reasons why Islam
has the ups over Zoroastrianism. Firstly, Islam claims to be a
universal religion for everybody. Contrary to what some people might
think, and contrary to how some of the followers of Islam might behave,
Islam is not an Arab/Pakistani/Indian religion. It’s just as much for
English speaking white people as it is for Arabs, Africans or Eskimos.
It’s also interesting that the word
‘Islam’ is an Arabic word that has a meaning, and that it is a
descriptive term that means ‘submission’ or ‘surrender’ to the Creator.
A Muslim then is one who claims to obey and follow the Creator’s
guidance. It also claims that this basic message of believing and
following the One, Unique and transcendent God is the basic message that
the Creator has always revealed through special chosen people referred
to as Prophets or Messengers. The name of this religion is not
connected to a particular person or place. Judaism (Juda), Christianity
(Christ), Buddhism (Buddha), Hinduism (India), Zoroastrianism
(Zoroaster), are all connected to a person or place. So, for example,
if one lived in some remote location and never heard that a man called
Jesus, who is also God and God’s son, died for one’s sins, there is no
way at all that one could come to the realisation of this through one’s
mind or through experience. You could never reason it. Someone would
have to tell you. This is not the case with Islam. The basic idea of
Islam, that there is a Unique Creator whose guidance we should follow,
is something anyone anywhere could figure out. As an idea, Islam,
submission to the One God, is truly universal.
Chapter 5
THE TEST OF CHARACTER
There are a few other tests that one could apply.
The first is connected with the character
and personality of the person making the claim. If the person claiming
to have a message from the Creator is known and displays truthfulness,
sincerity and honesty, it becomes easy to accept that the person is also
telling the truth about the Message they are receiving from the
Creator. Of course this could be countered by the claim that this person
is simply deluded. They think that they are what they claim to be, and
are honest and truthful, but their experiences are a product of some
mental aberration or hallucination. How can we know that this is not the
case?
Certainly none of us want to be conned or
taken for a ride by a fraudster or end up following a madman. Of course
a good fraudster will do everything in his or her power to make you
think that they are sincere and truthful. They will certainly make what
they have look and sound like the real thing, and they will often tempt
you with an offer that seems too good to be true. The problem here is
that we can easily end up back where we started. All our contenders
could end up looking like pretty credible characters, but the point here
of course is that we are not dealing with the actual claimants
themselves. It’s not Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Mohammad
or Guru Nanak knocking on our door themselves, it’s people who claim to
be representing them and what they said. We have stuff said about them
and written about them. So before we can examine these characters we
need to have some idea about how we know what they actually said as
opposed to what people have claimed that they said.
This is why the issue of scriptural
authenticity is important. The problem with Zoroastrianism is that there
is nothing really left of the actual writings and sayings of Zoroaster.
The liturgy remains, and some ideas of the basic theology, but his
actual words are more or less lost. The problems with Biblical
authenticity are well known even to honest Christian and Jewish
scholars. Here is an area where the Quran, the main scripture of Islam,
is really outstanding. There is very little controversy over the
authenticity of the Quranic text. In fact, one could pick up a copy of
the Quran from any mosque anywhere in the world, and one could compare
these with manuscripts dating to within thirty years after the death of
the Prophet Mohammed and you would find the text unchanged except for
the style of writing and certain marks placed to aid pronunciation. This
is quite remarkable for a text just over 1400 years old. Not only is
there an excellent record of written preservation, but the Quran has a
remarkable history of oral preservation as well. Muslims claim other
scriptures have been changed, lost and distorted in various ways, but
the Creator (whose word the Quran is) has promised to preserve the Quran
because it is the last revelation from the Creator for humanity and
thus Mohammed is the final messenger. Although Muslims themselves are
human and fallible, and as such do not necessarily represent the true
face of the religion, the Quran, and example and teachings of the
Prophet remain intact for people to be able to find out what the God’s
guidance really is.
This is what Muslims claim, but aren’t there lots of problems with Islam?
I mean how can anyone in the civilized
free world, or in fact anywhere, be expected to follow a religion that’s
1400 years old? It seems to treat women as second class citizens (but
in the civilized free world women are still paid less for the same job,
are regularly portrayed as sex objects, suffer scary amounts of sexual
and physical abuse and find it almost impossible to be respected as
mothers and wives, but at least in the civilized world we claim that
women are supposed to be equal). I mean the Quran actually says it’s
allowed to beat your wife on certain occasions! Men can have up to four
wives and unlimited concubines! Nice for them, and they get twice the
inheritance, and a woman’s testimony is worth half a man’s!
Then there is this jihad business and all that terrorism and ‘fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them.’
And how about all those seemingly
barbaric laws with hand chopping for thieves, and death for apostates
and adulterers (and how come it’s always the women that seem to get
killed?) and death for homosexuals, and whipping for drunks, and even
crucifixion for highway robbers!
Isn’t the Quran just like every other
religious book; full of contradictions, vague terms and open to many
levels of interpretation?
Well, the Quran seems to be unlike any
other scripture from at least one angle, and that is the nearly
undisputed fact of its preservation and authenticity. Then again, how
many of the issues that people have with Islam are actually to do with
the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet as opposed to the behaviour
of Muslims?
Let’s look at this rationally rather than emotionally.
Does the fact that the Quran teaches some
things that go against the customs and norms that we are used to, mean
that it is not from the Creator?
There is in fact no rational reason why
any of the aforementioned issues actually preclude its divine origin. So
what if it does not seem compatible with ‘modern’ life? Perhaps the
Creator doesn’t like modernity or any other man-made ideology. I’m not
saying this is the actual case, I’m just proving the point that again
this is not a rational reason to reject the claim of the Quran to be
from the Creator. In this respect, nearly every religion joins Islam in
questioning the validity of a lifestyle based on pure materialism and
enjoyment that seems to characterise much of modern life.
The problem with judging any given book
or scripture only on its morals and laws is that morals and laws in
general are far from universal. For example, something that may seem
like a harsh punishment in one culture is considered soft in another.
Limited polygamy might seem like an unreasonable restriction in a
society that relies on marriage as means of social security for women
and practices unlimited polygamy. To them monogamy might seem like
madness, especially to the women who rely on polygamy for security. The
self styled ‘civilized free world’ is itself constantly changing its
moral and ethical stance on many things. Things that were bad ten years
ago are acceptable today and vice versa, yet some spokespeople for the
values of the ‘free world’ talk about their morals and values as if they
were some sort of divine writ, which of course they are not. In fact
the opposite is true.
The point here is that the biggest
problem that people tend to have with Islam is actually not really a
valid criterion by which to judge it. Rationally, one should take the
position that if one can establish convincing evidence of a book’s
divine origin, then one should accept that the Creator of us knows what
is best for us. In fact, it is quite likely that humans would choose
morals, laws and values that they feel comfortable with rather than
those which are actually good and beneficial for them, or that some
humans (like those with authority and control) devise a system and moral
order that keeps them in power! The fact is, there are many things that
are good for us that we don’t like and many things we like that are
actually bad for us. So we should put this issue of the so called
incompatibility of Islam with modern life aside as a red herring (or
perhaps as another man in red underpants!)
Now, this may be time to swallow the
bitterest pill of all so far. Time to accept what for some of us might
be the hardest truth; that the Quran just might possibly be that
guidance from the Creator, and that Mohammed is a Prophet. At least we
should put our prejudice aside and try to openly examine the reasoned
arguments put forth in favour of the Quran’s claim to be that guidance.
After all, it does already have a few things in favour of this claim.
Let’s go over them again. Firstly, what it teaches about the Creator
matches what can be understood rationally by everyone everywhere, i.e.
that there is One Creator that is unlike the creation. There are lots of
verses in the Quran that expound this idea. For example:
“Say: He is God, the One and Alone, God
the one whom everything needs and who Himself needs nothing, He is not
born, nor does He beget, and there is nothing that can be compared to
Him.” [The Quran; Chapter 112 – The Purity, verses 1-4]
Some people question the use of ‘He’ in
the Quran. Does this mean that the Creator is a man? The Creator,
according to these verses, is not like anything. It’s just that in
Arabic, the original language of the Quran, like many other languages,
there is only male and female, no neuter. Even in English, saying ‘it’
doesn’t really seem an appropriate way to talk about God. ‘He’ just
happens to be the gender term that is used in the Quran, but it does not
imply or necessitate that God is a man or male.
The second thing in Islam’s favour is
that the scripture has been preserved in a remarkable manner. The
history of this preservation is itself worthy of some study, but for
brevity I’ll just relate some comments of various scholars on this
matter, for example:
The orientalist Richard Burton writes
that the Qur’an we have today is ‘the text which has come down to us in
the form in which it was organized and approved by the Prophet….What we
have today in our hands is the mushaf [text] of Muhammad.’ Kenneth Cragg
describes the transmission of the Qur’an from the time of revelation to
today as occurring in ‘an unbroken living sequence of devotion.’
Schwally writes in Geschichte des Qorans that ‘As far as the various
pieces of revelation are concerned, we may be confident that their text
has been generally transmitted exactly as it was found in the Prophet’s
legacy.’
They certainly seem convinced of the Quran’s authenticity.
The third reason we should sit up and
take notice is because the message of Islam claims to be a universal
one, that is, for everybody regardless of race or status, and indeed
makes clear that the Creator does not look at a person’s colour, race,
tribe, wealth or status, but rather at a person’s heart, goodness and
deeds.
The Quran, however, is no casual read. It
can be very difficult to get one’s head around, since it doesn’t seem
to follow any particular order of events, topic or theme. It repeats
itself a lot and even in the best English translation its style is
challenging to say the least. In fact, in order to understand it you are
forced to think, and thinking is what the Quran asks us to do a lot.
Despite this, the basic message is very
clear. There is only One God, who is both compassionate and merciful to
all His creatures, but especially to those who are humble and believe.
He is also severe in punishment to those who are arrogant and reject
the truth. Life is a test, and when we die and this universe as we know
it ends, there will be a day when we will be recreated physically and
judged and either rewarded with eternal bliss, or punished with eternal
torment.
Well I did tell you in the beginning
there was going to be stuff you wouldn’t like, like death and hell!
Still, the fact that we don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s not real
or true.
Is there anything else that might help us
accept the claim of the Quran to be from the Creator of the heavens and
earth? Well, the Quran itself gives a sort of falsification test. This
is in fact a good test to apply to any book that claims to be from the
Creator:
“Do they not then consider the Quran
carefully? Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have
found therein contradictions in abundance” [The Quran; Chapter 4 – The
Women, verse 82]
The point being here is that if a book is
from the Creator of everything, it’s quite rational to conclude that
this unique Being must be very intelligent and wise, to a level that is
perhaps beyond human comprehension. Certainly one would expect the
Creator of all things to be familiar with the basic workings of the
natural world and universe, and with events in human history
Actually what is remarkable about the
Quran is not only that it does not contain any contradictions, but in
fact it seems to be making statements about history, theology,
philosophy, law and the natural world that defies a normal human
explanation.
And there is another remarkable quality
about the Quran and that is that it still stands today as by far the
most outstanding piece of literature in the Arabic language. In fact,
the Quran itself challenges the Arabs, who were masters of poetry and
linguistic skill, to produce even one chapter that could compare to it.
The shortest chapter of the Quran was a mere three verses! At a time
when poets were the ‘pop stars’ of the Arabia, Mohammed showed no poetic
ability, either prior to or after the revelation of the Quran. In fact,
his sayings and statements are clearly different linguistically from
the Quran and can easily be told apart. Many of the most skilled poets
and orators of that time admitted that these were not the words of
Mohammed, or even a human. Many embraced Islam just from hearing the
Quran being recited. For them it was the most convincing proof of its
divine origin. Of course this may be hard for us to appreciate today,
but it stands as a historical fact. The question remains as to how
someone with no known poetic gifts was able to produce a piece of
literature that until today stands supreme in the whole of the Arabic
language at a time when the greatest pieces of Arabic poetry were being
produced. If one were to take a modern day comparison, it’s as
extraordinary as an uneducated person with no scientific knowledge or
training expounding a faultless unified theory of physics!
Mohammed was, like most people in Arabia
at that time, unable to read or write. He had no access to the means of
acquiring such knowledge. Indeed, it was a constant challenge to his
opponents then, as it has been throughout the history of those who
refuse to accept the possibility that the Quran is from the Creator, as
to where exactly he got all this information. Some Christian
polemicists even went as far as to claim that Mohammed himself was in
fact a heretical Christian bishop that had fled to Arabia, others
claiming that he learned from some dissident monk! However, despite the
rich history and available literature of Mohammed’s life, no one can
seem to be able to identify this character and how he managed to stay
hidden for the duration of the twenty-three years the Prophet preached.
Of course, another issue that this raises is the suggestion that the
Quran was an invention, and that Mohammed was a liar, and such a claim
is really very problematic, since any study of the life of Mohammed
clearly shows his complete sincerity and truthfulness. He does not
display the psychological profile of a con artist at all. This has led
others to claim that he was deluded and mad, that he really believed
that he was a Prophet, and managed therefore to convince himself and
others.
This leaves us still with the unexplained mystery of the amazing information and breadth of knowledge contained in the Quran.
You see, someone can’t be both deluded and a liar at the same time.
If you think you are a Prophet and really
believe you are receiving information from God, when someone comes to
ask you a difficult question as often happened to Mohammed, you don’t go
off running to your nearest priest or Rabbi to find out what the
answer is going to be. You’re convinced God is going to tell you.
The most reasonable conclusion that
explains the phenomenon of both the amazing level of information in the
Quran and the clear sincerity and truthfulness of Mohammed is that he
was what he claimed to be, the Messenger of God. It seems that this
alone offers a plausible explanation for the information, because this
knowledge is from the Creator, and acts as a sort of verification of it.
The Prophet Mohammed’s sincerity, truthfulness and principled
behaviour is explained by him actually being what he claimed to be and
having certainty that he was receiving a divine message.
Chapter 6
AMAZING LEVEL OF INFORMATION
Now some of you might, or perhaps should
be thinking what exactly is this ‘amazing level of information’ that
I’m talking about, and this is a vast topic in itself which could in
fact fill volumes, and then we’d need to add to that all the arguments
and counter arguments, and that would fill even more volumes! There’s
some recommended reading and web sites at the end of this if you’re
interested in going deeper. I’m just going to select a choice few things
that I find particularly fascinating and personally convincing.
The first is to do with history. Lots of
Christians have tried to accuse Mohammed of attempting to copy and use
the Bible, and this is pretty silly for a number of reasons. One of them
is because there just wasn’t a Bible in Arabic at that time and even if
there was, Mohammed wouldn’t have been able to read it. Now there are a
lot of the same people mentioned in the Quran that are in the Bible,
and this is because they are, mostly, Prophets and Messengers of God.
The Quran being the last revelation from the Creator deems their lives
to be examples worthy of mention to inspire and motivate believers in
times to come. It’s not strange that Abraham is mentioned since the
Arabs considered him their patriarch via his son Ishmael. One of the
Biblical terms used for the Arabs was Ishmaelites because of their
descent from him. However, what might seem strange and a challenge to
explain is just how much there is about Moses in the Quran. Of course
the simple explanation for this is that the challenges and tasks that
Mohammed faced were so much ‘like unto that’ of Moses, and therefore the
experience of Moses was a useful guide and inspiration to the final
Messenger.
There are two fascinating little, but telling, details taken from these stories in the Quran.
Firstly, it is interesting how Joseph
(son of Israel or Jacob) also mentioned in the Quran, never refers to
the ruler of Egypt as Pharaoh but rather calls him King, whereas Moses
is clearly dealing with a Pharaoh. The Bible calls both Pharaoh. Not
such a problem one might think, except that when we try to locate
Joseph in history we find that the dynasty ruling Egypt at the time
were in fact the Hykos, who were Semites and didn’t use the term
Pharaoh, which was a term used by the native Egyptians for their rulers.
The ruler of Egypt under Moses was a native Egyptian who had supplanted
the Hykos and who began to oppress the tribe of Israel. If Mohammed had
copied the Bible, why didn’t he copy this historical error? And where
did he get such accurate information from? There were no universities
with departments of Egyptology at that time. The knowledge of reading
hieroglyphs had been lost hundreds of years previously, and was not
known again until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone 1000 years later.
This makes the second piece of information even more fascinating.
The Quran relates the story of how Moses
goes to Pharaoh and invites him to believe in…Well, pretty much what
you’re reading here. Pharaoh starts to question Moses about this unseen
God above the heavens. Now Pharaoh was the one who thought he was god,
in fact he thought that through magic he could command the gods. So he
arrogantly says to one of his people:
Pharaoh said: “O Haman! Build me a lofty
palace, that I may attain the ways and means- The ways and means of
(reaching) the heavens, and that I may mount up to the god of Moses: But
as far as I am concerned, I think (Moses) is a liar!” [The Quran;
Chapter 40 – The Forgiver, verses 36 and 37]
Much has been made of the mention of this Haman, claiming that Mohammed copied stories from the Bible and got it all mixed up.
There is a Haman in the Bible in the book
of Esher, a book which is considered of questionable authenticity
itself, which places this character later in time in Persia as a
minister in the court of Ahasuerus. However, there are no independent
historical records that show that such a character ever existed in
Persia. In fact, Biblical scholars have identified Haman as the Elamite
god Humman, or possibly the Persian hamayun, meaning ‘illustrious’, and
to the Persian name Owanes.
We do however, contrary to the mocking
claims of many Christian polemicists, have a Haman, located in Ancient
Egypt that seems to fit the bill perfectly.
Dr. Maurice Bucaille was one of the first
people to study the name Haman from an Egyptological view point. He
surmised that since ‘Haman’ was mentioned in the Qur’an during the time
of Moses in Egypt, the best course of action was to ask an expert in the
old Egyptian language, i.e., hieroglyphs, regarding the name. Bucaille
narrates an interesting discussion he had with a prominent French
Egyptologist:
“In the book Reflections on the Qur’an
(Reflexions sur le Goran), I have related the result of such a
consultation that dates back to a dozen years ago and led me to question
a specialist who, in addition, knew the classical Arabic language
well. One of the most prominent French Egyptologists, fulfilling these
conditions, was kind enough to answer the question.
I showed him the word ‘Haman’ that I had
copied exactly like it is written in the Qur’an, and told him that it
had been extracted from a sentence of a document dating back to the 7th
century AD, the sentence being related to somebody connected with
Egyptian history.
He said to me that, in such a case, he
would see in this word the transliteration of a hieroglyphic name but,
for him, undoubtedly it could not be possible that a written document of
the 7th century had contained a hieroglyphic name – unknown until that
time – since, in that time, the hieroglyphs had been totally forgotten.
In order to confirm his deduction about
the name, he advised me to consult the Dictionary of Personal Names of
the New Kingdom by Ranke, where I might find the name written in
hieroglyphs, as he had written before me, and the transliteration in
German.
I discovered all that had been presumed
by the expert, and, moreover, I was stupefied to read the profession of
Haman: ‘The Chief of the workers in the stone-quarries,’ exactly what
could be deduced from the Qur’an, though the words of the Pharaoh
suggest a master of construction.
When I came again to the expert with a
photocopy of the page of the Dictionary concerning ‘Haman’ and showed
him one of the pages of the Qur’an where he could read the name, he was
speechless…
Moreover, Ranke had noted, as a
reference, a book published in 1906 by the Egyptologist Walter
Wreszinski: the latter had mentioned that the name of ‘Haman’ had been
engraved on a stela kept at the Hof-Museum of Vienna (Austria). Several
years later, when I was able to read the profession written in
hieroglyphs on the stela, I observed that the determinative joined to
the name had emphasised the importance of the intimate of Pharaoh.”
Now that’s what I call an ‘amazing level of information!’
Where did Mohammed get such knowledge from if not from God?
There is more.
Just think about the world 1400 years ago
and the level of knowledge that existed, or perhaps we should say the
level ignorance that was prevalent, especially in regards to the natural
world. Of course some thinkers and philosophers had made some amazing
discoveries, even estimating the circumference of the earth, but they
also got a lot of things very wrong. Legends and myths also abounded.
Reading the Quran, you find a distinct lack of such legends and myths
about the creation of the universe and the natural world. Yes, there are
miracles and wonders worked by the Creator to increase the faith of the
faithful and confound the obstinate, but otherwise descriptions of the
world and universe seem remarkably modern. You would expect the Quran
to reflect the myths and legends of the time. Even if Mohammed had
managed to pick up the best ideas of the time and leave out these
legends, it still does not account for the remarkable consistency of the
Quran with modern science.
Here are a couple of verses in the Quran dealing with the universe and its creation.
“Do not the Unbelievers see that the
heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation),
before We clove them asunder, and We made from water every living thing.
Will they not then believe?” [The Quran; Chapter 21 – The Prophets,
verse 30}
Ever heard of the Big Bang and how the
universe started as a singularity, a super-condensed ball of matter and
energy? We talked about that in the beginning, remember? It sure seems
that the information in the Quran is correct about something that we
discovered just about seventy years ago. Then how about this:
“And it is We who have constructed the
heaven with might, and verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it.”
[The Quran; Chapter 51 – The Winds That Scatter, verse 47]
When Einstein was conjuring up his
theories, the consensus among scientists was that the universe was
static and had been like that forever, but new observations made it
clear that this was not the case and that in fact galaxies were moving
away from each other at a constant rate. In other words, the universe is
expanding. More than strange is how these things came to be found in a
book 1400 years old.
Science is a very fickle fellow. Things
which scientists all agree upon at one time are turned on their heads
and are shown to be contradicted by observations at another time, so
perhaps it’s not the best thing to judge a book by. Still, there are
some things that seem to have been observed so often and so much that it
becomes some sort of ‘fact’.
One of these things is the embryonic
development of humans. The idea that we go through stages of foetal
development is really quite new. Lots of theories abounded in antiquity
and early modern times that today seem to sound a bit silly. For
example, one of the dominant theories that was prevalent in the
eighteenth century was the pre-formation theory. This was the idea that
animals existed pre-formed in the sperm. There were even claims of
observations of this through the primitive microscopes available at the
time. So much for seeing is believing! Aristotle thought that menstrual
blood congealed with the aid of semen to form a foetus. It was not until
the late nineteenth century that what we know today began to be clearly
articulated. Yet over 1400 years ago the Quran stated:
“Man We did fashion from a quintessence
of clay. Then We placed him as (a drop of) fluid in a place of rest
firmly fixed. Then We fashioned the fluid into a leech-like thing that
clings (the word “alaq” is sometimes incorrectly translated as a
blood-clot). Then We fashioned that leech-like thing that clings into a
chewed-like lump. Then We fashioned the chewed-like lump into bones and
We clothed the bones with flesh. Then We developed out of it another
creature. So hallowed be Allah, the Best of Artisans”; [The Quran;
Chapter 96 – The Clot, verses 1-2]: “…who fashioned man from a
leech-like thing that clings”; and [The Quran; Chapter 22 – The
Pilgrimage, verse 5]: “We fashioned you out of dust, then out of a drop
of fluid, then out of a leech-like thing that clings, then out of a
morsel of flesh – partly formed and partly unformed…”
Keith Moore, Professor and Chairman,
Department of Anatomy, University of Toronto, Canada, and author of ‘The
Developing Human’, and considered one of the world’s leading
embryologists, said concerning these statements in the Qur’an and
authenticated hadeeth: “Until the 19th Century, nothing was known about
classifying the stages of human development. A system of staging human
embryos was developed around the end of the 19th Century based on
alphabetical symbols. During the 20th century, numerals were used to
describe 23 stages of embryonic development. This system of numbering
the stages is not easy to follow and a better system would be based on
the morphological changes. In recent years, the study of the Qur’an has
revealed another basis for the classification of the stages of the
developing embryo which is based on easily understood actions and
changes in shape. It utilizes terms which were sent from God to
Muhammed the Prophet by the Angel Gabriel and recorded on the Qur’an …
It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from
God because almost all of this knowledge was not discovered until many
centuries later. This proves to me that Muhammed must have been a
Messenger of God.” Marshall Jonson, Professor and Chairman, Department
of Anatomy, Director of the Daniel Baugh Institute, Thomas Jefferson
University, Philadelphia, U.S.A., said: “As a scientist I can only deal
with things I can specifically see. I can understand embryology and
developmental biology; I can understand the words that are translated to
me from the Qur’an. If I were to transpose myself into that era,
knowing what I do today and describing things, I could not describe the
things that were described. I see no evidence to refute the concept that
this individual Muhammed had to be developing this information from
some place, so I see nothing in conflict with the concept that Divine
Intervention was involved on what he was able to say.”
Another interesting statement that is found in the Quran concerns the mountains:
“Have We not made the earth as a bed, and the mountains as pegs?” [The Quran; Chapter 78 – The Great News, verse 6]
Today we know that mountains have deep
roots under the surface of the ground and that these roots can reach
several times their elevations above the surface of the ground. So the
most suitable word to describe mountains on the basis of this
information is the word ‘peg’, since most of a properly set peg is
hidden under the surface of the ground. This theory of mountains having
deep roots was introduced only in the latter half of the nineteenth
century. Mountains also play an important role in stabilizing the crust
of the earth. They hinder the shaking of the earth.
“And He has set firm mountains in the earth so that it would not shake with you…” [The Quran; Chapter 16 – The Bees, verse 15]
Likewise, the modern theory of plate
tectonics holds that mountains work as stabilizers for the earth. This
knowledge about the role of mountains as stabilizers for the earth has
just begun to be understood in the framework of plate tectonics since
the late 1960s!
The Quran mentions many things about the
natural world and asks us to think deeply and contemplate, and that
those with understanding will realise that these are all signs that
point to the power and wisdom of its Creator, that all of this is not
for nothing or for entertainment, but rather for a profound and noble
purpose.
The Quran is not meant to be a book of
science, but a book of signs. It is easy to understand how the Creator
would know about the common origin of the universe, the details of
embryonic development and that mountains have roots, but it is not easy
to explain how Mohammed managed to include this information in the Quran
unless we accept his claim to be a Messenger. It would seem that
accepting this would be the most sensible thing for a rational, sincere
person to do.
Chapter 7
TEACHINGS OF THE BOOK
What then are the basic teachings of the Quran?
Well the first thing to accept is that
there is One God, who is unique and unlike anything, and that nothing is
like God. God is One and Alone, who has no partners and no rivals, and
we should pray to and worship only the Creator.
How to pray to and worship the Creator
and be guided by His knowledge is where Mohammed comes in. The Quran
teaches that all of God’s Prophets and Messengers to the humans have
been human. That is because they are not only delivering a message, but
their life is also a practical example of how to follow and implement
that message. This makes sense. If one human can do it, then at least in
theory the rest of us can too! If the messenger for all of us was an
angel, then we’d all be making lots of excuses about how we couldn’t
possibly be like an angel since it’s easy for them to be, well, so
angelic!
Life, the Quran tells us, is a test. That
is why there is suffering and joy, health and illness, wealth and
poverty, good and evil, night and day, darkness and light. It is through
its opposite that we come to know something. How can we really
appreciate what is good without evil, and how often is it that we only
appreciate good health when we are sick? The test is to make known the
reality of our selves. Will we accept the truth or follow our desires?
Will we obey the Creator or rebel? God has given us guidance and free
will. We should use our intelligence to understand and follow that
guidance. If we make mistakes, as is inevitable since we are human, we
should know that as long as we keep seeking the Creator’s guidance,
asking for forgiveness and doing our best to change ourselves for the
better, the Creator will keep forgiving us.
In fact, this understanding of our
limitations and recognition of God’s greatness is the essence of what
Islam is about. This is why humans should submit and surrender
themselves to God, and that is what Islam really means.
The reason for our existence, the primary
purpose of our complex minds, and the gift of reason is to understand
and to try to do everything in a way that is pleasing to the Creator.
We know how to do that through the guidance that has been given to us.
In order to help us live most effectively and be constant in this, the
Creator has made it an essential component of this way of living to
establish regular acts of worship in our lives. It is not that God
needs this, not at all! God is without needs and is entirely
self-sufficient. Rather, we have been created with that need. Just as
our bodies need food, our minds, our souls are designed to be nourished
through remembering and worshipping God.
This is why the most important action
that a Muslim (one who follows Islam) has to do is to pray in a special
way at special times throughout the day and night. There are five of
these daily ritual prayers. Establishing this regular ritual prayer with
sincerity and understanding is the key to changing ourselves. When done
properly, it is a life transforming ritual.
Another essential component is giving
charity to help those who are less fortunate and needy One of the most
important components of living a life that is pleasing to God is being
kind to and helping others.
Of course living this life takes
discipline, self control and patience, and this is the reason why
fasting has always been a component of religious life, and this is also
the case with Islam. Every year there is a month called Ramadan when one
has to leave off food, drink and sex from dawn until sunset. It is also
important to try to keep away from evil in speech and actions, since
that is the essence of what fasting is supposed to lead to.
Speaking the truth and not lying, keeping
promises, fulfilling trusts, always being just, even against one’s own
family or self, are essential characteristics of the true believer.
Respecting one’s parents and being kind
to them, especially in old age, being good to one’s neighbour, and
encouraging good and discouraging evil are essential virtues.
These make the fundamentals of Islam and being a Muslim.
Life is short and soon, very soon we will all die, but death is not the end.
The Quran teaches that there is a day of
judgment when God will assemble us together and we will have to answer
for everything that we have done. Every atom’s weight of good and evil,
we will know about it.
For those who rejected truth, who chose
to rebel, there is a terrible punishment in store. It is a choice they
made. The truth was clear to them, yet they preferred to ignore it, and
so an awful fate awaits them, the fire of hell, where people will be
roasted and burnt yet will not die, but continue to suffer eternally.
Those who were good and lived a life of
obedience to God will live forever in complete joy and bliss in
paradise. There will be no hatred or anger or jealousy, just peace and
happiness, physical and spiritual. What a beautiful abode!
That, really, is what the Creator is
inviting us to. His paradise. Following Islam does not mean that there
will be no more tests or difficulties in life. In fact, the Creator
tells us that we will not be left just saying we believe without being
tested. Following the guidance of God teaches us how to deal with those
tests, and hardship turns into ease, confusion into understanding, pain
into pleasure, and sadness into joy.
Knowing this, and following it brings
true peace to the heart. In this sense Islam really does bring peace. A
peace that is not merely the absence of war, but a peace that is deeper
and more profound.
Chapter 8
THE JOURNEY’S END
So there we have it.
We have neared the end of our journey and the destination is in view. There is really only one thing left to do!
It’s about time to open that door and let the true message from the Creator guide your life.
Yes, it may seem a bit strange and the
things you need to do are probably not those you are quite used to.
You’re probably wondering what your family and friends will say! Well,
you can always try just saying nothing except “read this” and pass it
on!
As I said before, the difficult part is
not understanding how much sense this all makes, the really hard part is
doing it! In fact, really, honestly, truly even that is not so hard!
Just start by making a firm intention
that you are doing this because it’s what the One who created you wants
you to do! Then why not actually try asking for some help. Yes! Just go
ahead and try asking the Creator of all things, and ask Him alone, not
through anyone or anything, just direct to the Creator, and do it
sincerely from your heart to guide and help you to do the right thing.
OK! So how do you feel?
Well if you feel the way I expect you to then all you have to do is follow these steps.
Simply say: “I am a witness that there
really is no god except the One God and that Mohammed is the Messenger
of God (technically that is what makes you Muslim) and in Arabic “Ash
shadu an laa il laaha il Allah wa ashadu anna Mohammadan rasul lu lah!”
You need to start learning to pray the
five prayers that a Muslim has to pray every day. To learn how to do
this or for any other help contact “Muslim Now” (www.muslimnow.org).
And that really is just about all you have to take care of right now.
May the peace and blessing of God be with you always.
–
Contents:
Chapter 1: The Journey Begins
Chapter 2: Unanswered Questions
Chapter 3: The Test of Teachings
Chapter 4: The Test of Universality
Chapter 5: The Test of Character
Chapter 6: Amazing Level of Information
Chapter 7: Teachings of the Book
Chapter 8: The Journery’s End
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