Thursday 1 March 2007

proofs that there is a God.

heres a forum convo im having about proofs that there is a God.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lao tzu View Post
Greetings, gugen,

I don't believe in gods in general, so naturally I don't believe in your god in particular. Humans have a long history of looking for rhyme and reason in the world around them, and, failing to find explanation, they often choose to invoke causes they cannot understand by recreating them in human shape. Even when we do not dress them in our own physical form, though that's common enough, we grant them all of the other aspects of humanity.

We give them a personality, a consciousness, control of their environment, and a desire to be respected. We make them in our own image. We create them with desires that we can fulfill in exchange for hope that our own desires can likewise be met.

I find this process understandable, but ultimately unproductive.

Over the past few thousand years, humans have slowly learned to take control of most of the aspects of divinity we once assigned to our gods. We control the lightning today. We foretell the hurricanes. We measure the earthquakes and build our structures with these stresses in mind. Our need to pray for relief from these natural disasters has consequently waned.

Over the past few hundred years, humans have slowly learned to discover for ourselves, in reliable fashion, facts beyond our natural ability to discover them. From the depths of the living cell to the galactic clusters at the furthest extent of the universe, we have learned to see what could not be seen before. Our need for "revelation" as an avenue to truth has consequently abated.

Islam, like the Abrahamic faiths that preceded it and followed it, is today an anachronism. The universe as we humans perceived it thousands of years ago is today as quaint as our perception of our place within it once was. We are growing up, and putting away the childish self-centeredness that sees the universe as nothing more than a place created for us.

As ever, Jesse

basically you are saying we dont need a God, its an illogical and old-fashioned idea which we use to explain the existence of the world, and now in the 21st century we are more advanced and civilised and thus need to do away with this "childish" belief.


okay well firstly, the theist always has more proof than an atheist. the atheist (which is almost a religious belief system - they believe in something that cannot be proven) cannot prove there is not a God. However we, Muslims, can.

We can do it through the following logic:

1.There had to be a source for all the matter in the Big Bang = God
(im sure with your knowledge you know the other arguments too )
2.It makes sense that God contact us as he would have a reason for creating us.(tenable on its own but stands well when linked to the next few points)
3.If he contacted us, it would make sense to tell us what he requires off us.
4.This contact logically would be easiest if he sent them a prophet from amongst human beings.
5.These human Prophets would then have an essentially matching set of teachings at the basic level. (eg Moses-Jesus-Muhammad all preach monotheism.) As they are all from the same source=God.
6.Now these Prophets would not speak of their own...as no-one would believe them...they need authority of "God". So they have books sent down to them, which also deals with the problem of following the teachings of God once the prophet passes away-as now they have a lasting copy of God's teachings.
7.God gives these Prophets signs that would impress the people they were aimed at: eg Jesus PBUHand the healings, raising from dead etc, Muhammad PBUH came at a time sufficiently advanced enough for God to end all revelations to mankind...(eg the Torah and NT corrupted and the Qur'an isn't -also people more advanced in lots of other ways) and he came at a time when,people were getting into literature much more, and from 1400 years ago, until the end of time - ...the biggest miracle of the Prophet Muhammad, given to him by God, is the Qur'an.
8. so now we have the Qur'an as the proof of God's existence, like the people who witnessed Jesus healing lepers etc, the modern day person has to read the Qur'an and think...is this book similar to any other book i have ever read?
does it sound like its been written by an illierate and uneducated man in a desert 1400 years ago? (scientifically sound too - but thats another way to prove the existence of God)
9.the next proof is the messengership of Muhammad, his life and his motives. simple put, either Muhammad PBUH was a prophet of God, or he wasn't.
Now lets look at his motives if he wasnt a Prophet of God. Muhammad was offered enormous wealth, but he refused. He was offered kingship of Makkah but he refused. He used to darn his own clothes, and him and his family used to survive on many occasions on only water and dates. And he continued to live very very simply all his life, even towards the end, when wealth was pouring into the hands of the Muslims. He had only 2 pieces of cloth, and at the time of his death, he had pawned off his armour to someone in order to live. This is the man that could ask any Muslim to give him wealth and the Muslim would give him all his wealth - but he never did. He used to stand for hours upon hours in prayer in the middle of the night, sacrificing his own sleep, crying to his Lord for forgiveness of the Muslims, for their success in this world and the next and thanking God for all that he had given him, he used to stand so much so much that his feet used to swell up. The question is: was this man sincere or not? The answer, as even Non-Muslims have to conclude is that he most definitely was.
now the next challenge: to prove he really was from God:
firstly his message matched the other previous "selfless" and "sincere" and "monotheistic" prophets that came before him - so thats criteria 1 met.
Next, the only other option we have to go down...is that he was (naoodobillah) insane or deluded. This allegation is dealt with extensively in the Qur'an and refuted, God does deal with this as he knows that this is the only option left for people to reject him.
Also we have to look at his life...was this man really acting insane? The enemies of him at the time also had to conclude that he wasn't insane, he didn't have fits, he didn't speak or act in a strange manner and his words (if they were not Gods -the Qur'an in other words) were not something even a highly intelligent and gifted poet/orator/linguist of the time could have made up, never mind an insane person. He used to be the best in character in Makkah and his fame for this was such that he was known as "the trustworthy". -his judgement was respected (many authentic stories that i wont mention here ) - why respect a madmans judgement?
Also we look at this guys achievements: he managed something that no-one had ever managed in history: uniting the arab tribes, and doing this in only 23 years.He must have been an incredible diplomat and an incredible orator -insane...doesnt add up?
What else did he do? He lay the seeds for one of the biggest empires ever seen on earth - changing those backward sheep-herders into scholars, doctors and teachers...and insane deluded man did this?
He had the following of 100,000s, this is impossible for a madman to have accomplished. Think about it: this is the most authentically reported on person ever. His entire life, from his sayings to family life to travelling to even going to the toilet, all was recorded. From here we know that if there was any even HINT of Insanity - he would have been found out straight away...and he would never have got this incredibly large following. (and remember the arabs were a tribal society - notoriously hard to unite).
Also for him to have written a book like the Qur'an, his own character and ideas, as any authors does, must be in the Qur'an. As we know...he was an incredibly humble person...but the Qur'an is an extremely authoritive book as befits something from God- why the mismatch if he wrote it?
Also If he wrote the Qur'an, he must have been secretly studying (which with the scrutiny he was constantly under - was impossible) modern scientific facts...using a non-existent microscope and a non-existent powerful telescope, and also we have to take the advanced scientific facts to be known to him as a given right?
He must also have been a psychologist, the like of which has never been seen since and before him,to have written a book like the Qur'an, which addresses all the thoughts of a questioning reader, giving them powerful arguments to swallow. - again ...this guy insane...deluded you say?
So we have to conclude that he wasnt insane, wasnt lying and was sincere. Therefore there remains only one option: He was the Messenger of God!

conclusion:
so basically you have many ways to prove God:
the first cause, intelligent design etc.
then you have the fact that we have a logically believable (they all match) tradition of messengers of God coming to us through history.
The life of Muhammad is another fantastic example of there being a God and him communicating to mankind.
Also the Qur'an is the miracle given to us by God, as proof that he exists.(and thats another topic on its own )

thanks for the replies btw