Hello people of faith.... please watch the video and see how your belief system is like...
Friday, April 29, 2011
This is how I see - Zakir Naik's explanation on Islam to an Athiest
This is how Zakir Naik wants to convince an atheist on God's existence and how Islam is the path to god...
And here are my responses to his bogus claims:
ZAKIR NAIK: Normally, when I meet an atheist, the first thing I like to do is to congratulate him and say, " My special congratulations to you", because most of the people who believe in God are doing blind belief - he is a Christian, because his father is a Christian; he is a Hindu, because his father is a Hindu; the majority of the people in the world are blindly following the religion of their fathers. An atheist, on the other hand, even though he may belong to a religious family, uses his intellect to deny the existence of God; what ever concept or qualities of God he may have learnt in his religion may not seem to be logical to him.
My Muslim brothers may question me, "Zakir, why are you congratulating an atheist?" The reason that I am congratulating an atheist is because he agrees with the first part of the Shahada i.e. the Islamic Creed, 'La ilaaha' - meaning 'there is no God'. So half my job is already done; now the only part left is 'il lallah' i.e. 'BUT ALLAH' which I shall do Insha Allah. With others (who are not atheists) I have to first remove from their minds the wrong concept of God they may have and then put the correct concept of one true God.
MY RESPONSE: Thanks Zakir but you will need real proof and not make beliefs to make me believe in your religion or in God.
ZAKIR NAIK: My first question to the atheist will be: "What is the definition of God?" For a person to say there is no God, he should know what is the meaning of God. If I hold a book and say that 'this is a pen', for the opposite person to say, 'it is not a pen', he should know what is the definition of a pen, even if he does not know nor is able to recognise or identify the object I am holding in my hand. For him to say this is not a pen, he should at least know what a pen means. Similarly for an atheist to say 'there is no God', he should at least know the concept of God. His concept of God would be derived from the surroundings in which he lives. The god that a large number of people worship has got human qualities - therefore he does not believe in such a god. Similarly a Muslim too does not and should not believe in such false gods.
MY RESPONSE: These are the two definitions I found in dictionary for the word "God".
1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
2. ( god) (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity : a moon god | an incarnation of the god Vishnu.
• an image, idol, animal, or other object worshiped as divine or symbolizing a god.
• used as a conventional personification of fate : he dialed the number and, the gods relenting, got through at once.
2. ( god) (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity : a moon god | an incarnation of the god Vishnu.
• an image, idol, animal, or other object worshiped as divine or symbolizing a god.
• used as a conventional personification of fate : he dialed the number and, the gods relenting, got through at once.
ZAKIR NAIK: If a non-Muslim believes that Islam is a merciless religion with something to do with terrorism; a religion which does not give rights to women; a religion which contradicts science; in his limited sense that non-Muslim is correct to reject such Islam. The problem is he has a wrong picture of Islam. Even I reject such a false picture of Islam, but at the same time, it becomes my duty as a Muslim to present the correct picture of Islam to that non-Muslim i.e. Islam is a merciful religion, it gives equal rights to the women, it is not incompatible with logic, reason and science; if I present the correct facts about Islam, that non-Muslim may Inshallah accept Islam.
Similarly the atheist rejects the false gods and the duty of every Muslim is to present the correct concept of God which he shall Insha Allah not refuse.
MY RESPONSE: The picture of Islam that you are rejecting as wrong has xreated this image because of the "Holy" scribblings in your Quran. Here are a few contradictions in Quran:
1. And it just doesn't add up: (*) Surah 4:11-12 and 4:176 state the Qur'anic inheritance law. If a man dies and leaves three daughters, his two parents and his wife then they will receive the respective shares of 2/3 for the 3 daughters together, 1/3 for the parents together [both according to verse 4:11] and 1/8 for the wife [4:12] which adds up to more than the estate available. A second example is, that when a man leaves only his mother, his wife and two sisters, then they receive 1/3 [mother, 4:11], 1/4 [wife, 4:12] and 2/3 [the two sisters, 4:176], which again adds up to 15/12 of the available property. Guess God doesn't know mathematics. Well, what more can you expect from a tyrant. No wonder he is bad at the language of reason.
2. Further numerical discrepancies (*) Does Allah's day equal to 1,000 human years (Surah 22:47, 32:5) or 50,000 human years (Surah 70:4)?
3. Islamic version of what man was made from: A criticism of the Qur'an involves verses 5-7 of surah 86. They claim: Now let man but think from what he is created! He is created from a drop emitted - proceeding between the backbone and the ribs. (86:5-7)
This contradicts the scientific fact that semen is produced by the testicles, prostate gland, and seminal vesicles, none of which are between the backbone and the ribs. Critics note that Hippocrates, whose writings were widely available in the pre-Islamic Middle East, had taught that semen passes from the kidneys via the testicles into the penis, and that this is a plausible source for the idea in this verse. Muslim apologist Maurice Bucaille states that these verses are "hardly comprehensible" and finds his own translations of them using meanings not found in dictionaries.
This contradicts the scientific fact that semen is produced by the testicles, prostate gland, and seminal vesicles, none of which are between the backbone and the ribs. Critics note that Hippocrates, whose writings were widely available in the pre-Islamic Middle East, had taught that semen passes from the kidneys via the testicles into the penis, and that this is a plausible source for the idea in this verse. Muslim apologist Maurice Bucaille states that these verses are "hardly comprehensible" and finds his own translations of them using meanings not found in dictionaries.
And there is a really long list...
ZAKIR NAIK: The methods of proving the existence of God with usage of the material provided in the 'Concept of God in Islam' to an atheist may satisfy some but not all.
Many atheists demand a scientific proof for the existence of God. I agree that today is the age of science and technology. Let us use scientific knowledge to kill two birds with one stone, i.e. to prove the existence of God and simultaneously prove that the Qur'an is a revelation of God.
If a new object or a machine, which no one in the world has ever seen or heard of before, is shown to an atheist or any person and then a question is asked, " Who is the first person who will be able to provide details of the mechanism of this unknown object? After little bit of thinking, he will reply, 'the creator of that object.' Some may say 'the producer' while others may say 'the manufacturer.' What ever answer the person gives, keep it in your mind, the answer will always be either the creator, the producer, the manufacturer or some what of the same meaning, i.e. the person who has made it or created it. Don't grapple with words, whatever answer he gives, the meaning will be same, therefore accept it.
MY RESPONSE: Yes, scientific methods of rigour and testing are unfallable like human minds. Scientific method is totally based on evidence and not fairy tales. So are you saying Quran mentions many scientific facts (which I seriously doubt) and thus is a revelation from God. Even an encyclopedia mentions many scietific truths and facts which almost 100% of the population of the Earth doesn't kow. Does that make it a word of God?. No.
Your second argument is the "FAMOUS" watchmaker argument. Just because everything around you that seems complex was designed by someone even more complex in makeup, then humans and every other living creature (which are incredibily complex in their makeup) mus be made by an even complex creator, God. Following the same argument, it is very logical to ask, who made the so very complex God? Thus there is no end to the regress. Only option out is that life came from very simple beginnings and has evolved in to the complex forms as we see today.
ZAKIR NAIK: Blah blah.... probability blah bhah,.... guesses are correct blah blah blah.
The world that we live on, what's the shape of this earth on which we live? The atheist will tell you it is spherical. When did you come to know? So he will tell us it was 1597 when Francis Drake's when he sailed around the earth and then he proved that the earth was spherical. But QURAN says 1400 years ago in SURAH NAZIAT C 79 V 30. وَٱلۡأَرۡضَ بَعۡدَ ذَٲلِكَ دَحَٮٰهَآ And thereafter WE have made the earth egg shape. The Arabic word 'Dahaha' one of which meaning is geological expand. The other meaning is direct from the Arabic word 'Duyah' which means an egg. It doesn't refer to a normal egg. It refers to the egg of an ostrich. We know that the world is not completely round like a ball but it is geo-spherical in shape its flat from the poles and if you analyze the shape of the egg of an ostrich that two is geo-spherical in shape.
MY RESPONSE: Please visit this website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth
You'll see people had hypothesised a spherical Earth centuries before the Quran was even written.
ZAKIR NAIK: The light of the moon can be its own light or a reflected light. The Qur'an rightly says it is a reflected light. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/2 and the probability that both the guesses i.e the earth is spherical and the light of the moon is reflected light is 1/30 x 1/2 = 1/60.
MY RESPONSE: Quran says :
Blessed is He Who made constellations in the skies, and placed therein a Lamp [siraaj] and a Moon giving light [noor] (25:61)
It is He Who made the sun to be a shining glory and the moon to be a light [noor] (of beauty), and measured out stages for her; that ye might know the number of years and the count (of time). Nowise did Allah create this but in truth and righteousness. (Thus) doth He explain His Signs in detail, for those who understand. (10:5)
See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, and made the moon a light [noor] in their midst, and made the sun as a lamp [siraaj]? (71:15-16)
It is He Who made the sun to be a shining glory and the moon to be a light [noor] (of beauty), and measured out stages for her; that ye might know the number of years and the count (of time). Nowise did Allah create this but in truth and righteousness. (Thus) doth He explain His Signs in detail, for those who understand. (10:5)
See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, and made the moon a light [noor] in their midst, and made the sun as a lamp [siraaj]? (71:15-16)
I agree with you here that moon light is "reflected" light. But Quran says the moon is place in the midst of 7 heavens. I hope you know man has been to moon and has come back and many unmanned missions have also made it there. Sadly though, no one has ever found any of these heavens or their virgins while travelling through the distance.
ZAKIR NAIK: Further, the Qur'an also mentions every living thing is made of water. Every living thing can be made up of either wood, stone, copper, aluminum, steel, silver, gold, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, oil, water, cement, concrete, etc. The options are say about 10,000. The Qur'an rightly says that everything is made up of water. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/10,000 and the probability of all the three guesses i.e. the earth is spherical, light of moon is reflected light and everything is created from water being correct is 1/30 x 1/2 x 1/10,000 = 1/60,000 which is equal to about .0017%.
MY RESPONSE: Yes every living thing on Earth has water as its major constituent. Even ancient cultures knew that. Hindus and ancient Greeks considered bodies to be made of Earth, Fire, Wind and Water. And far from your logic, living cells ar made also from other elements like hydrogen (which is a constituent of water itself), carbon, potassium, calcium, zinc, iron, copper, etc. Guess your God didn't know that.
ZAKIR NAIK: The Qur'an speaks about hundreds of things that were not known to men at the time of its revelation. Only in three options the result is .0017%. I leave it upto you, to work out the probability if all the hundreds of the unknown facts were guesses, the chances of all of them being correct guesses simultaneously and there being not a single wrong guess. It is beyond human capacity to make all correct guesses without a single mistake, which itself is sufficient to prove to a logical person that the origin of the Qur'an is Divine. CREATOR IS THE AUTHOR OF THE QUR'AN.
The only logical answer to the question as to who could have mentioned all these scientific facts 1400 years ago before they were discovered, is exactly the same answer initially given by the atheist or any person, to the question who will be the first person who will be able to tell the mechanism of the unknown object. It is the 'CREATOR', the producer, the Manufacturer of the whole universe and its contents. In the English language He is 'God', or more appropriate in the Arabic language, 'ALLAH'.
MY RESPONSE: Only logic that follows that Quran, like any other religious scripture is full of logical and scientific errors that has nothing to do with sientific approach. It is only for lack of ability to think that people will fall into the stupid religious dogma.
ZAKIR NAIK: Its mentioned in Quran, Mountains are created to prevent Earthquakes. Now we know with latest advances of science that this is actually a fact.
MY RESPONSE: [ROFLMAO] A scientific contradiction critics use is the claim that the quran says mountains were created to prevent earthquakes. In reality, mountians were created as a result of earthquakes, and mountains do not render the earth's crust stable.
And He has set up on the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with you; and rivers and roads; that ye may guide yourselves; (16:15)
And We have set on the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with them, and We have made therein broad highways (between mountains) for them to pass through: that they may receive Guidance. (21:31)
And We have set on the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with them, and We have made therein broad highways (between mountains) for them to pass through: that they may receive Guidance. (21:31)
Critics say these verses show that the writer of the quran did not know the reason for the creation of mountians. These verses say that mountians were created to prevent earthquakes, while modern geology tells us that mountians were created because of earthquakes and not to prevent them. Mountains are simply folds of Land created when two tectonic plates collide. Simple. And God got it wrong. LOL.
ZAKIR NAIK: When I was in school ı had learned that the sun was stationary. It revolves but did not rotate about on its own axis. Then atheist may says 'Is that mentioned in the QURAN?' I said 'No that is what I learned in school.' 'And I passed my school in 1982 approximately 12 years back I have learned the sun was stationary did not rotate about on its own axis. But the QURAN says in SURAH AMBİA C 21 V 33.' IT IS ALLAH WHO CREATED THE NIGHT AND THE DAY AND THE SUN AND THE MOON.EACH ONE TRAVELLING IN THE ORBITS WITH ITS OWN MOTION'. So the QURAN says that beside the sun revolving, it even rotates about its own axis. Who could have mentioned that in the QURAN 1400 years ago?
MY RESPONSE: First of all, Day is because of presence of sunlight on one part of the Earth and night is absense of light in one part. No one can "create" day and night. Your book says Sun and Moon travell in orbit with their own motion. But no where it mentions Earth travels around the Sun. Infact people at that time considered Sun to revolve arount Earth. Thus it is very much probable that the "Good" book of yours is just portraying God's hand in that myth.
Also the book mentions: Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness." (18:86)
And the sun runs his course for a period determined for him: that is the decree of (Him), the Exalted in Might, the All-Knowing. (36:38)
Notable critics claim that these verses are a scientific error since the sun does not actually set in a spring of murky water. [8][9] Muslims respond by stating that this part of the Quran is a narrative from Zul-Qarnain's point of view; and Zul-Qarnain was describing the setting of the sun as he saw it (the sun looked like it set in a spring of water). But I thought Quran was the word of God. Where did this guy's words come into picture?
ZAKIR NAIK: There are hundred of verses in the QURAN which only speaks about the water cycles which science has discovered these centuries.
We can keep on talking that today we have come to know that the plants have got sexes which we did not know earlier. QURAN says in SURAH TAHA C 20 V 53 that the plants got sexes, males and females. Today we have come to know that there is two types of water, sweet and salty and there is barrier between them which is mentioned in the QURAN in SURAH FURQAN C 25 V 53 and SURAH RAHMAN C 55 V 19 – 20 . مَرَجَ ٱلۡبَحۡرَيۡنِ يَلۡتَقِيَانِ (١٩) بَيۡنَہُمَا بَرۡزَخٌ۬ لَّا يَبۡغِيَانِ IT IS ALLAH WHO HAS LET FREE TWO BODIES OF FLOWING WATER. THOUGH THEY MEET THEY DO NOT MIX. THERE IS A BARRIER BETWEEN THEM. Today's science tell us that it is the mountains which prevent the earth from shaking which is mentioning in the QURAN 1400 years ago in the SURAH NABA C 78 V 6 and 7. The QURAN speaks about BIOLOGY that WE HAVE CREATED EVERY LIVING CREATURES FROM WATER. EVERY LIVING THINGS. IN SURAH AMBIA C 21 V 30. QURAN mention this 1400 years ago. The QURAN speaks about ZOOLOGY about the life-span of the spiders in SURAH ANKABURT C 29 V 41. About the ants in SURAH AL NAMAL C 27 V 17 to 18. About the bees in SURAH NAHL C 16 V 68-69. The QURAN speaks about EMBRYOLOGY in SURAH ALAQ C 96 V 1-2 . WE HAVE CREATED HUMAN BEINGS FROM ALAKA (A LEECH-LIKE SUBSTANCE) which we have come to know recently. The QURAN speaks about the embryological stages in SURAH MUMINUM C 23 V 12 TO 14. You can go on talking about the scientific point there are more than thousands of verses in the QURAN which speaks about science. After every scientific facts you ask the question, who could have mention that in the QURAN? The only reply the atheist can give you is the creator, the cherisher, the manufacturer, the inventor, the producer. This creator, this manufacturer, this producer, this inventor we Muslim call HIM as ALLAH. That's the reason Francis Bacon, very famous philosopher said 'little knowledge of science takes you away from AL MIGHTY GOD. In-depth knowledge of science makes you a believer in GOD. That's the reason today scientists are not eliminating GOD. The illuminating the models of GOD 'LA I LAHA ILLAL LAH''.
MY RESPONSE: Water cycle was a fact long before quran was written and people knoew about various phases of water. Do you know there are plants and animals that reproduce asexually. Also there are also plants that have both male and female sexes. I guess your God forgot to mention them.
Please open your eyes in light of reason and evidence.
UPDATE: Zakir Naik claims all the life is created from water. Here is a piece of evidence that shows the existence of non-water based life-form.
http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/2336/life-in-asphalt
Saturday, December 18, 2010
This is How I See – Atheism Answered
# If we live in a purely material world then how do we account for the many supernatural experiences that people have, such as encounters with God, ghosts, spirits, etc.
Isn’t it surprising that supernatural experiences in people around the world vary from place to place. People in Europe, the Americas and other Christian countries say that they have experienced Christ. In India, people have experienced various Gods and Goddesses, spirits and other supernatural entities. In Islamic nations, people have experienced Jins, revelations by Prophets and Allah. If everyone of these religions claim their God(s) is true, then how come all these people have different religious experiences?
A simple answer is : Human mind is highly susceptible to hallucinations, light tricks, and childhood indoctrinations of their religion being the right one.
# Where does all of the incredibly complex information come from that is stored within DNA? Information doesn’t just appear by itself. Someone has to put it there.
I am quiet sure the people who pose this question are highly mystical and have no clue about what is DNA and what it is made of. So for your information, DNA consists of two long polymers of simple units called nucleotides, with backbones made of sugars and phosphate groups joined by ester bonds. These two strands run in opposite directions to each other and are therefore anti-parallel. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of molecules called bases. It is the sequence of these four bases along the backbone that encodes information.
So, chemical variations in DNA, decide how the organism will be. If the sequence of 4 bases along the backbone is changed, the organisms characteristics also change.
We have been able to alter the DNA sequences in organisms to produce hybrids. So, there is nothing Godly about existence of a molecule like DNA. It exists just like other molecules exist.
# Why does humanity seem to have an innate desire and need to worship something, or someone? Why is there such a universal religious sense within humanity?
Because worshipping a God gives a sense of security. Humanity’s need for comfort is of course real. We still need a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. But it is astonishing that so many people are unable to understand that if “x” is comforting, it does not imply “x” is true.
For example, when we give a difficult exam, we may find it comforting to believe that the evaluation of the paper will be lenient, but that does not imply that our belief in lenient evaluation will make it true.
# Isn’t it a bit extreme to assert “God does not exist”? To make such a statement you would have to have complete knowledge and to have been everywhere in the universe. Maybe God dwells somewhere in the universe you don’t know of or have not been to? Is that possible?
I am a day factor atheist. I can’t know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there. I am an agnostic and I have a belief in God as the same level of belief I have in fairies or pink unicorns. Probability of existence of God cannot be refuted completely as it is a scientific hypothesis.
But if God dwells in this universe, then universe must have created God and not the other way round!!!
# What about the evidence of design in all of creation? It is obvious that anything that is designed has to have an intelligent creator. For example, a computer never came about by mere accident, but had to have been thought out and planned by an intelligent designer. It is the same with creation, and more so, as the natural world is far more complicated than anything humanity can create.
In the familiar world of human artefacts, things like watches, computers, complicated things that look designed are designed. To naive observers, it may follow that similarly complicated things in the natural world that look designed; things like eyes, ears and hearts are designed too.
Although this argument looks plausible, it is actually a fallacy. If you randomly scramble the fragments of an eye or a heart a million times you will not probably hit on one that could see or pump. This demonstrates that such devices could not have been brought together by chance. And there are many people who think that only alternative to random chance is design.
So this means that the design of complicated things has to be done by a designer who is even more complex and advanced. So that means he himself must be designed!!!
Darwin gave us the answer to this when he observed species of animals and birds in and around Galapagos Islands. The answer is natural selection. I won’t go into description about natural selection as it is not the purpose of this post. Do a Google search if you are not aware about the process of natural selection.
# Where does all the matter in the universe come from?
Matter is highly condensed form of energy (E=mc2). All the energy was condensed together in a point. Due to inherent property of Entropy in all of the matter and energy, the process of expansion began. Why the property of Entropy exists is a question that we are still working upon.
Entropy is a property of matter (and energy) that causes disorder from order. A highly ordered ice cube (molecules of the ice crystal are highly ordered) will melt into disordered group of molecules (first water and then vapour).
The same is also the reason why we die. Living beings are highly ordered. They disintegrate after death. Again entropy in action.
There are now new evidences that entropy is also countered in the universe. Universe may not expand for ever but there may be a time.
# If no supernatural Creator exists, how did the universe originate?
We don’t know for sure. But saying “God created Universe” just pushes this question to a level up : “Who created God?”.
# If no supernatural universal Designer exists, why is the universe suitable for the existence of life?
Most of the universe does not support life. Only very few places are there where life has been able to adopt according to the conditions. It isn’t that hard to imagine existence of places that can support life considering the fact that these places are very few and the universe is very vast.
# If no supernatural universal Designer exists, what caused the repeated disappearance of more primitive forms of life and the appearance of new more advanced forms of life?
Species of plants and animals that no longer exist are due to their failure in adapting to the environmental changes. And the species that came thereafter were able to adapt to the changing conditions and in turn were evolved into those species that we see around.
# If no God exists who can work miracles and communicate with men, how did the Jewish people come to believe that their ancestors experienced the Exodus and the Revelation at Mt. Sinai?
Human mind is highly susceptible to hallucinations, light tricks, and childhood indoctrinations of their religion being the right one.
# If we have no soul, why do we feel conscious of ourselves?
A plant that is kept near the sunlit window bends towards the window. This happens because of the presence of a chemical called kinetin. Sunlight causes excessive secretion of kinetin in that area which kills the cells in the stem. Thus, the growth of the stem only occurs in the shaded region, causing the stem to bend towards light.
Thus, even plants are conscious to factors like sunlight. Consciousness in humans and other animals are just buildup of such multiple stimuli.
# If no God exists, why are we obligated to be nice other people?
So that they are nice to us and we are not totally rejected by them. Its for our own good.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
This is how I see - "The God Delusion"
"The God Delusion" is a best selling book by Richard Dawkins. A must read for anyone with a slightest literary inquest.
Believers in God (or Gods) often argue that since the existence of God cannot be proved the probability of existence of a Superhuman Being that made us and everything else in this Universe is 50%. So there is no harm in believing in God as there is a very high probability of God’s existence.
Now lets say “There is a white China teapot revolving around the sun somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Mars”. As no one can disprove the existence of that teapot, does that make the probability of the existence of the teapot between Earth and Mars as 50%? All believers in the God are therefore “Teapotists”!!!
Hello everyone. In this post I will be quoting Richard Dawkins many times. This post is about a delusion that most of the people on Earth have. A delusion called God. Richard Dawkins has written a wonderful book “The God Delusion” which is a must read for someone who is open enough to look into the fact that even existence of God needs to be questioned as any other scientific hypothesis. Lets get on with it then...
Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence? Almost everyone has the same religion as their parents. And it always just happens to be the RIGHT religion! Religion run in families. If we’d been brought up in ancient Greece, we’d been worshiping Zeus and Apollo. If we’d been born as Vikings, we’d been worshiping Votan and Thaw. How does this come about? Well obviously through childhood indoctrination. One by one those ancient belief systems have vanished from the face of the Earth. And we seem to get on just fine without them. Zeus with his Thunderbolt, Apollo, Votan, Thaw with his hammer, Mithras and Amun R’ah, all were once worshiped as Gods. People believed in them, prayed to them, sacrificed to them. Children were brought up with them, were told about their existence as an undoubted fact. But now everyone agrees that no matter how sincere those believes were, they were deluded. All those Gods along with the countless other Gods in which human tribes have believed in were just a delusion. Some of us go just one God further.
Let’s remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don’t believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist’s metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.
There are many people who call themselves agnostics. This is rather a confusing term. I have put up here a scale of religiosity. Where ‘1’ is “I know there is a God” and ‘7’ is “I know there is no God”. And we have got a scale of intermediate agnostic positions.
Now lets say “There is a white China teapot revolving around the sun somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Mars”. As no one can disprove the existence of that teapot, does that make the probability of the existence of the teapot between Earth and Mars as 50%? All believers in the God are therefore “Teapotists”!!!
Hello everyone. In this post I will be quoting Richard Dawkins many times. This post is about a delusion that most of the people on Earth have. A delusion called God. Richard Dawkins has written a wonderful book “The God Delusion” which is a must read for someone who is open enough to look into the fact that even existence of God needs to be questioned as any other scientific hypothesis. Lets get on with it then...
Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence? Almost everyone has the same religion as their parents. And it always just happens to be the RIGHT religion! Religion run in families. If we’d been brought up in ancient Greece, we’d been worshiping Zeus and Apollo. If we’d been born as Vikings, we’d been worshiping Votan and Thaw. How does this come about? Well obviously through childhood indoctrination. One by one those ancient belief systems have vanished from the face of the Earth. And we seem to get on just fine without them. Zeus with his Thunderbolt, Apollo, Votan, Thaw with his hammer, Mithras and Amun R’ah, all were once worshiped as Gods. People believed in them, prayed to them, sacrificed to them. Children were brought up with them, were told about their existence as an undoubted fact. But now everyone agrees that no matter how sincere those believes were, they were deluded. All those Gods along with the countless other Gods in which human tribes have believed in were just a delusion. Some of us go just one God further.
Let’s remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don’t believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist’s metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.
There are many people who call themselves agnostics. This is rather a confusing term. I have put up here a scale of religiosity. Where ‘1’ is “I know there is a God” and ‘7’ is “I know there is no God”. And we have got a scale of intermediate agnostic positions.
Number ‘4’ agnostic believes that the probability of God existing and not existing is exactly 50%. Number ‘2’ is “I don’t exactly know there is a God but I believe there is a very high probability that there is a God. I am a day factor theist. I don’t know for certain but I strongly believe and ascertain that I live my life on the assumption that he is there”. Number ‘6’ on other end is someone who believes in a very low probability of the existence of God, but still not quiet zero. “I am a day factor atheist. I can’t know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there”. I am a number ‘6’. I am an agnostic and I have a belief in God as the same level of belief I have in fairies or pink unicorns. I am not a “teapottist” but a practical man.
I believe that the hypothesis of the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis. In this I disagree with many of my scientific colleagues that science and religion have absolutely nothing to do with each other and you could be a perfectly good scientist while your religious belief is a purely private matter that has nothing whatever to do with your science. The universe with a God is completely different to a universe without a God. For God could clinch the matter to his favour in a heartbeat, like at this very moment when I am disproving him.
The only one argument that is still widely used today is the ‘Teleological’ argument. Also called the ‘argument from design’. Its the famous watch maker example.
In the familiar world of human artifacts, things like watches, computers, complicated things that look designed are designed. To naive observers, it may follow that similarly complicated things in the natural world that look designed; things like eyes, ears and hearts are designed too.
Although this argument looks plausible, it is actually a fallacy. If you randomly scramble the fragments of an eye or a heart a million times you will not probably hit on one that could see or pump. This demonstrates that such devices could not have been brought together by chance. And there are many people who think that only alternative to random chance is design.
So this means that the design of complicated thins has to be done by a designer who is even more complex and advanced. So that means he himself must be designed!!!
Darwin gave us the answer to this when he observed species of animals and birds in and around Galapagos Islands. The answer is natural selection. I won’t go into description about natural selection as it is not the purpose of this post. Do a Google search if you are not aware about the process of natural selection.
Now many people are lobbying for teaching religion at schools. Many convent schools, Hindu missionary schools and Muslim missionary schools have come across India that do teach religious ideology. If they want to teach this fallacy of their holy books, why not also teach controversies like the theory of stork coming and delivering babies at doorsteps to avoid teaching sex at schools.
I believe that the hypothesis of the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis. In this I disagree with many of my scientific colleagues that science and religion have absolutely nothing to do with each other and you could be a perfectly good scientist while your religious belief is a purely private matter that has nothing whatever to do with your science. The universe with a God is completely different to a universe without a God. For God could clinch the matter to his favour in a heartbeat, like at this very moment when I am disproving him.
The only one argument that is still widely used today is the ‘Teleological’ argument. Also called the ‘argument from design’. Its the famous watch maker example.
In the familiar world of human artifacts, things like watches, computers, complicated things that look designed are designed. To naive observers, it may follow that similarly complicated things in the natural world that look designed; things like eyes, ears and hearts are designed too.
Although this argument looks plausible, it is actually a fallacy. If you randomly scramble the fragments of an eye or a heart a million times you will not probably hit on one that could see or pump. This demonstrates that such devices could not have been brought together by chance. And there are many people who think that only alternative to random chance is design.
So this means that the design of complicated thins has to be done by a designer who is even more complex and advanced. So that means he himself must be designed!!!
Darwin gave us the answer to this when he observed species of animals and birds in and around Galapagos Islands. The answer is natural selection. I won’t go into description about natural selection as it is not the purpose of this post. Do a Google search if you are not aware about the process of natural selection.
Now many people are lobbying for teaching religion at schools. Many convent schools, Hindu missionary schools and Muslim missionary schools have come across India that do teach religious ideology. If they want to teach this fallacy of their holy books, why not also teach controversies like the theory of stork coming and delivering babies at doorsteps to avoid teaching sex at schools.
A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts - the non-religious included - is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offense and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other. Douglas Adams put it so well, in an impromptu speech made in Cambridge shortly before his death, that I never tire of sharing his words:
“Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, ‘Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? - because you’re not!’ If somebody votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says ‘I mustn’t move a light switch on a Saturday’, you say, ‘I respect that’.
Why should it be that it’s perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows - but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe ... no, that’s holy?”
We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it’s very interesting how much of a furor someone creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you’re not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn’t be.Lets raise our consciousness about what’s so special about religious arguments that they should be immune to exactly the same kind of rationale discussion as political or any other kind of arguments.
The point here is there is a logical pathway leading from religion to he committing of atrocities. If you believe that your religion is he right one, you believe that your God is the only God, and you believe that your god has ordered you through a priest or through a holy book, to kill somebody, to blow somebody up, to fly a plane into a sky scraper, then you are doing a righteous act. You’re a good person. You are following your religious morality. There is no such logical pathway leading from atheism. It just doesn’t follow.
Now a point that is commonly raised is that Hitler was an atheist and he was responsible for war and deaths. Well, firstly there are many evidences that he was a Catholic and not an Atheist. And even if he was an atheist, so what? He also had a mustache. So does that mean everyone with a mustache is a racist bigoted killer? And most of the killings were done by the Nazi army which consisted of mainly Christian believers.
It is sometimes said that humans need the comfort of religion. Humanity’s need for comfort is off course real but isn’t it something childish, something infantile in the belief that Universe owes us comfort, in a sense that if something is comforting, then it must kind of make it true.
The consolation content of the belief does not raise its truth value. I can’t deny the need for emotional comfort and I can’t claim that the world view adopted by atheists offers anymore than moderate comfort. If you’re afraid of death, for example, you might superficially think that the words of a priest who tells you that you are not really going to die would be more comforting than a scientist who tells you that it is highly improbable that our individuality could survive the decay of our brains.
As for eternal nothingness, is it all that frightening? As Mark Twain said : “I do not fear death. I’d been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and I had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it”.
I want to end by quoting the lines from Richard Dawkins’ book “The Unweaving of The Rainbows” :
“ We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which vast majority have never stirred.”
“Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, ‘Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? - because you’re not!’ If somebody votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says ‘I mustn’t move a light switch on a Saturday’, you say, ‘I respect that’.
Why should it be that it’s perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows - but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe ... no, that’s holy?”
We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it’s very interesting how much of a furor someone creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you’re not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn’t be.Lets raise our consciousness about what’s so special about religious arguments that they should be immune to exactly the same kind of rationale discussion as political or any other kind of arguments.
The point here is there is a logical pathway leading from religion to he committing of atrocities. If you believe that your religion is he right one, you believe that your God is the only God, and you believe that your god has ordered you through a priest or through a holy book, to kill somebody, to blow somebody up, to fly a plane into a sky scraper, then you are doing a righteous act. You’re a good person. You are following your religious morality. There is no such logical pathway leading from atheism. It just doesn’t follow.
Now a point that is commonly raised is that Hitler was an atheist and he was responsible for war and deaths. Well, firstly there are many evidences that he was a Catholic and not an Atheist. And even if he was an atheist, so what? He also had a mustache. So does that mean everyone with a mustache is a racist bigoted killer? And most of the killings were done by the Nazi army which consisted of mainly Christian believers.
It is sometimes said that humans need the comfort of religion. Humanity’s need for comfort is off course real but isn’t it something childish, something infantile in the belief that Universe owes us comfort, in a sense that if something is comforting, then it must kind of make it true.
The consolation content of the belief does not raise its truth value. I can’t deny the need for emotional comfort and I can’t claim that the world view adopted by atheists offers anymore than moderate comfort. If you’re afraid of death, for example, you might superficially think that the words of a priest who tells you that you are not really going to die would be more comforting than a scientist who tells you that it is highly improbable that our individuality could survive the decay of our brains.
As for eternal nothingness, is it all that frightening? As Mark Twain said : “I do not fear death. I’d been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and I had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it”.
I want to end by quoting the lines from Richard Dawkins’ book “The Unweaving of The Rainbows” :
“ We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which vast majority have never stirred.”
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