G L.... I don't know what to think of you. If you are a bot than congrats to your programmers. If not I find you weird and pithy.
G L.... I don't know what to think of you. If you are a bot than congrats to your programmers. If not I find you weird and pithy.
Rores28, I don't mind being weird and pithy.
I know that this is getting away entirely from the point of this thread (maybe not) but I have been thinking of asking you, G L, to prove your humanity but I have realized that I no longer care whether or not you are a human or a bot or maybe some mix of the two, you say some good stuff so bot or not, I accept you.Originally Posted by G L Wilson
Thank you, lieasleep. Now I have lost the thread of our argument, where were we? Yes, must we imagine Sisyphus happy?
Last edited by G L Wilson; 06-10-2011 at 08:13 PM.
haha I think that we are getting somewhat off topic but I don't care and think Camus had some very pointed intentions when writing those words (and to put it in the context of this thread, we are discussing the possibility of happiness when considering the universe without god and without meaning). I think Camus was showing us how happiness is possible through acceptance of life's base condition. But, as much as I buy that, I think true acceptance of the universe (including life) on its base terms (which again, is being used within this lexicon as a description of godlessness, nihilism, and acceptance of our lack of freedom), "refusing to hope," as Camus put it, nearly requires sadness as well.
I read a book called They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy (a book that led many French to call him the true founder of existentialism) and, to not rant on for too long, basically asserted a character's unhappiness in the face of a crushingly realistic disillusionment (like those that we are talking about) against the backdrop of the Great Depression. The character chooses death. I think the conditions of our life (all of the things we can't change about living but are desperately trying to) are crushing and to not treat them, even while remaining happy, as crushing (obviously not to the extent of suicide) takes some hope. So yes, is the answer to your question, but not completely happy.
Martin Luther King Jnr said that he had been to the mountain top and had seen the promised land. I think that I will push my rock in his direction if you don't mind, lieasleep.
Of course you will, that is the point.
And as I am thinking about it, so does everyone else (who doesn't, yet die). Gods, meanings, universalities are all attempts at this happiness only with a much larger amount of faith than yours, G L. But is it still not an attempt at happiness while being crushed? (I do not mean to give it a negative spin, I am treating it as if it just was, trying to expose it perhaps, but not-- at least intentionally--as negative)
Last edited by lieasleep; 06-11-2011 at 04:29 PM.
My lot is a poor one, lieasleep, but I still have hope that one day man will achieve paradise.
Originally stated in OP:
As for my believing in God, I said I believe in God primarily because I find nature so beautifully planned that I think a God has to be involved somewhere.
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In my late twenties, I also looked at nature and told myself that there had to have been a God to create such a perfect world. I wasn't sure if He was still around until later.
A few years after this, I experienced a heartache that left me devastated. Even in my despair, the love I felt for the person who caused this allowed me to forgive. When I did that, a new understanding of myself came to light and I was filled with a positive energy that I knew was totally different from anything I had felt before.
At the time, I didn't connect it with God, but a couple of years after that when I found myself in the same situation again, (a sinful relationship that I shouldn't have been in) I read a book that told of Jesus and who He is and why He is the acceptable sacrifice for sin and that if I believed in Him, I would be redeemed and reconciled to God.
In other words, no matter what I had done God wasn't mad at me anymore. I chose to believe it and that same positive energy returned only this time I knew who it was coming from. I also could see that I had put myself in harm's way. It wasn't only the other person involved who was at fault.
It was a tremendous experience with much insight gained and guilt lifted. There was a new-found freedom that I was so grateful for. I will never forget it.
let me tell a little bit(here little bit coz he did a tremendous job and answer every question of the this modern era of science) from my teacher sayings and you will also come to know about the reason of my beleiving in God.
Everyone has different opinion, but what is worst of all is intellect itself as Sheikh Ibn-e-Arabi had said ¡ “Knowledge is the greatest veil” similarly the intellect of any intellectual is the main problem; this is a big dilemma, more psychological and scientific attitudes. When I perceive my approach is right and get the results out of my hard work, worldly and universal problems are being solved according to my deliberations. Meanwhile someone ask me to accept religion, whereas there is no empirical evidence/data for me to accept God. Same case is being faced by every scientist when he accepts God or tried to accept God. As they (scientists) had researched to solve scientific problems, similarly I have researched on the concept of God.
I still remember when a western professor enquired me, how I found God? I told him that I did nothing extraordinary I just tried like a common student who had an urge to discover truth and mostly I wished to get rid from God and main cause of this fear was due to the image of God in my mind of a cruel person who will beat me if did any wrong. These images are instilled in our minds from generations. To overcome this fear I decided to search Him if he exist then its all right if not then I will be free.
I searched on the concept of God for eight years. I did not start my research on lower level. I had in my mind objections of world’s greatest intellectuals, philosophers and atheist so I started my research on their standards. I have observed a common weakness in all the scientists that when they talk about God (mostly in the cosmologist). As everyone knew Alexander Fleming, who had to examine a culture plate for twelve years, after twelve years he suddenly discovered penicillin. Mostly things are discovered like this. Suddenness is very important but behind this suddenness great efforts are involved. After so much hard work when scientists discover something they give such comment .Excellent¡¦.! Very good¡¦! Exceptional hard work! This is a meticulous work! Dedicated, great people work with. But when they talk about God they talk like quacks. And it would be unjust to give opinion about it without reading it on its own level, as Lord Russell did and said about Quran,
“All gospel truths is alike”
But all gospel truths is not alike, Quran is not like Bible. It is entirely a different book of which if any information is proved wrong then Allah becomes also wrong. There is a major difference between Quran and other gospels. Man remains a man despite of doing hundred of mistakes but Allah is not Allah if he does a single mistake. And Allah has declared Quran as his data on earth.
They did not even study the whole Quran, neither Hadith (explaining documentary of quran, the life of Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H) nor Islamic History. They talk in a funniest way whether he is Altaf bhai or Hoodbhoy.
.it is the same case if I would be delivering lecture on atomic physics instead of thesis of Islam and hall is full of scientist who are waiting earnestly for my departure. You cannot even imagine how stupid these people look when they talk about God. I would rather suggest them to stop giving their opinion in these matters. I experienced a practical incident when I said with reference to Quran that God has set the mountains up as kingpins to keep the earth in balance The head of physics department of Quaid-e-Azam University wrote me a letter asking My dear professor If you came at university I will teach you about that, you should not talk on these realities. We have not such evidence. This is not right I replied him only that sorry professor, you are not a professor of Geology, You are a professor of Physics, do not involve yourself into other people job The professor of physics is criticizing me on giving geological statements. Obviously I have not studied it because I have not to become a scientist but the knowledge I get from God or Quran can never be denied, either it is proved through sciences or arts. God gives a statement in the Quran, just tell me from where I get its proof .it was a queer statement that a bird .hoopoe. came to king Solomon (A.S) and said O. Grand king I have founded a strange and splendid state where a woman ruled and they worshipped the Sun. ladies and gentlemen! Who was hoopoe? I don’t know! there are many who even denied this bird and say how birds could talk to Prophets and vice versa. One person said that king Solomon (A.S) had not addressed to the ants, he should wait a little before giving a final statement as he said ants can not hear, it was true since three years back, now modern research has proved that ants are able to hear, speech and give signals at 1 mega hertz. They ask for evidence which is known by every one now but it is not still known which quality in Prophet make him able to hear their voices, obviously he was an extraordinary man. When I studied this incident I was worried to get its evidence. Ladies and gentlemen! You will surely get the evidences from the archaeological findings of Sebains civilization where it was ruined. Do you know archaeologists have founded some places in Sebains civilization where people worshipped .Apollo. the Sun. The very first pillar founded by them was of Apollo. Now sayings of God don’t surprise me any more but what surprised me is the fact that what Quran says in the first place of these people that they worshipped Sun is being discovered by the archaeologist too. So ladies and gentlemen! It is necessary to take help from everywhere. My respected teacher Ali Usman Hajveri had said, If you want to know God then get every kind of knowledge which is required for explaining Quran. And now a day it is not possible to be skilled in every kind of knowledge. But you can achieve that intellectual level where one can understand the ultimate results. Once you get a level of maturity then naturally anything can be understood. As it is not necessary to learn whole mathematics but there are chances that you would be able to understand the end results. It is not known how many years Newton took in the discovery of laws of motion but now they are even understood by children easily. So research is a different thing and the result of that research becomes a simple one, means scientist does not work as hard on religion as we do. But I am still not satisfied with the work done on Quran. Sorry to say! Let me give you an example from Qura.n where God says: Mankind was one community (Al-Baqra 213)
I was looking for its evidence so I had to go back to the history where I found only idolatry and before idolatry there exist mythologies so I studied hard all the mythologies of the world. I was in a mood to find some mistake done by God to deny Him so I tried very hard and studied all the mythologies and when came to Greek mythology I noticed one thing that mostly you never read it from the beginning and remained stuck to only contemporaneous mythology. It tells us that there were several gods of Olympia .Zeus, Afrodite, Hephaestus were few of them but if we go back to history of Olympians, its very strange to know that all the gods of Olympians were born out of one god named Coronus who used to devour all his offspring when they were born, so his son Zeus was fled with his siblings to an island Crete. In the beginning they worshipped one God but they could not bear the oneness for long. They had to shift their place to build other temple at some other place and this gave rise to Idol ship. If we look at Indian history there are several idols and their respective generations. Whereas the origin of Indian mythology starts from Aryans. When they entered India they believed on one god .Indra.. He had two distinct qualities being .God of thunder. and .God of swarg. means .Zuljalal-Wal-Ikram. who is able to give reward and punishment. When he entered in India they wed locked him with two goddesses .Mitra. and .Warona. which built trinity and there was no more oneness of God. The oneness of God came to surface again with another God Brahma. In the same time period came Vishnou and Shiva and another trinity came in to being. When the son of Mano asked his father to describe omnipotence of God, he replied:There is only one God who has got two qualities of being destroyer and constructive. Ladies and gentlemen! You cannot imagine how much hard work is required for the interpretation of Quran, I want to clear that some data of quran has been discovered by sciences from Quran, and there are possibilities of some improvement as Quran says:
“We made every living thing of water” (Al-Anbiya 30)
And biology has further confirmed that all life is created by water. Now it has become a law.
There are many Quranic laws which are not confirmed yet by sciences or they are in mid way in the form of hypothesis. There is no need to be feared, with the advancement of sciences nature will confirm it and I swear by God if there would be anything proved against Quranic data, I will be the first man to leave God. He has given me the liberty to refuse or believe unless I understand it fully. I have searched God and now from thirty years I am with him. First of all you need some logic to believe and then come closeness with God. If you are willing to be closed to God then sciences are not enough. You will have to get knowledge of everything. Let me tell you about a science which has not yet been discovered by sciences and I learn it from Quran. It is science of feelings and sentiments; it is a pity that sciences labeled feelings as unscientific. As time will pass you will come to know its actions, reactions and reciprocal reactions. After ten years you will learn that every feeling is a science, all the syndromes are science. But it will take time Keep learning and be Patient.
Laidback person! this is the main fault that we try to see God from our angle only. too limited mind which is not able to capture or imagine the time n space only besides all the creations. than with this mind how can we come to see or imagine God?
about God and moralities its only religions(prophets) which told us something.
if u have read above the main external scienticfic argument is "Man remains a man despite of doing hundred of mistakes but Allah is not Allah if he does a single mistake. And Allah has declared Quran as his data on earth. "
i have many scientific inventions same as mentioned in quran 1400 years before, "everything is moving in its orbits for a specific time" " We are expanding the universe" do u beleive that these are quran's statements and now sceinces are proving it!! ?
Quote : Quran is the book of creations while science is the book of research.
O' Allah give us the knoweldge of reality of the things and give us the straight path towards you. Amen
"With power We constructed the universes(skies, heaven) Verily, We are extanding the vastness of space thereof." 51, 46 Quran
To beleive in God and to beleive that quran is the data of God on earth, this only verse is enough. In quran God says that previous books are corrupted with human mixing. But for His last book He said that He will protect it word to word.
We all know in previous centuries , earth was considered to be static. after sometime scietist said that sun is static and earth is revolving around sun. but now latest and final theories says that every thing is moving and this universe is expanding. i wrote this science's statement final as it reaches the statement of God. there are many others verses which tells most scientific inventions. In islam 1400 hundred years back there is clue of cloning as well in Hadith books which was possible only in Dajjal era" the single eyed".
Quranic language is arabic which is very wide and have a variety of words. when it is translated in other languages , it was not possible to translate exactly the same. unfortunately translators when couldnt understand any word ( which is for future time) they translated it by their own mind. only few of them translated same as it was given. like for above verse Quran uses "mosi on" which mean expand. but earlier translator due to their lower level of faith was afraid to do exact translate. some of them did like power, some wrote it that God expand the food. one of the biggest misunderstanding that islam is known and recogonize by the muslims actions. if some one want to understand islam He/she should read only quran and sunnah( hadith which is life of Muhammad peace be upon Him, my teacher says its the expaining documentary of quran).
I liked your post and can understand your reason for believing in God.
You quoted partially from one of my earlier post to which I have added the later lines, so that the idea looks more complete:
"As for my believing in God, I said I believe in God primarily because I find nature so beautifully planned that I think a God has to be involved somewhere. Sitting outside in a harsh sunlight troubled by world and personal affairs, the faith about a benevolent God is shaken at times. But I tell myself I can not comprehend the ways of God and if I take everything as a will of God and just do the work as I can do best, that is probably the right way of living."
I agree fully with you here.
Yours is an interesting post and it seems you have worked hard in your endeavor towards validating concept of God.
Although I am from science background and respect its logic, I too believe that God is beyond all scientific logic and theories about material world and beyond the grasp of hardcore scientists.
I am ready to agree to this also. But I believe that there has to be only one God for entire mankind, for entire universe.
We all, being His children I just can not imagine a benevolent God to forsake his other children who are not Muslims.
Also what about all those people who were born and died before the birth of Prophet Muhammad.
I just like to take God to be beyond all religions of the world.
you are absolutely right to beleive that there is only one God for entire mankind and for entire universe. and also for all 7 universes. as it is also mentioned in quran that there is 7 earths He created so that human come to know that God is so great and powerful. He doesnt get tired. Nor sleep. dizziness is away from Him. His knowledge is surrounding n capturing each n everything.
i beleive we all are the creations of God not children. He is one and only. nothing which we can even imagine is like Him, we cant give example of anything present in the universes. coz Creator is bigger than the creations.
the breif expalanation about your concern "Also what about all those people who were born and died before the birth of Prophet Muhammad."
i have mentioned in the thread " enemy within". i like you to read and comments over there as i observe your way of thinking is apreciatable.
i also like to request other respected members to read once and comments in above mentioned thread as there are answers of so many questions i have read in religious text of so many people. people are always ready to accept truth but with argument first. by this way i'll get the chance to improve my knowledge as well. i read so many thread and i felt lucky that here in this network there are so many good mind gather under a same umbrella. i also congrats to admin for making such a good plateform for literary minds. in the end i again yes request to read my threads with critical mind and raise questions. Also i like to see point of views of ur guys about mystic (saint). kindly comments about mystic in my other thread names Mystic : a Truth, a reality , a path
Thank you very much
Last edited by usman.khawar; 07-19-2011 at 09:05 AM.
Because I cannot prove the existence of God, and I cannot disprove the existence of God.
Though I have seen much to make me believe there might very well be a God, I couldn't prove it. And though I have seen much that would leave me to believe there isn't a God, I couldn't prove that either. There for Agnosticism seems to make sense.
One thing is certain, libernaut, God is a dead un because he hasn't won any races lately and isn't likely to.Because I cannot prove the existence of God, and I cannot disprove the existence of God.
Though I have seen much to make me believe there might very well be a God, I couldn't prove it. And though I have seen much that would leave me to believe there isn't a God, I couldn't prove that either. There for Agnosticism seems to make sense.
Last edited by G L Wilson; 07-20-2011 at 03:18 AM.
Nietzsche tried to save that horse yaknow... tragic
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