Verification of Islam
Critic:-
As religious experiences are subjective, there is no way of verifying them. I could make claims that the pencils on my desk talked to me and gave me a message for mankind - and who could refute that? It is irrefutable. It is not even unscientific as science is based on repeatability within laboratory conditions - the fact that no one can repeat the results I got does not disprove something did not happen.
Comment:-
Things in science can also be verified in the field, or through calculation. Spiritual ideas can also be verified by their repetition, but like science this requires an appropriate discipline, an appropriate descriptive language and appropriate procedures under appropriate conditions. As in science you have to seek and make the effort. Even a mosque or retreat or a truly religious home can be a "laboratory" for that. The fact is that all ideas have to be verified by experiences.
Whereas, claims to inspiration can be verified because of repetition in the experiences of many people, the type of ideas you mention can be refuted by their inconsistency with the ideas and behaviour of those who present them and their relevance for others.
Critic:-
There is no scientific or other way of verifying religious doctrines.
Comment:-
We disagree
When people want evidence for something they may have misunderstood what that thing is and what kind of evidence are they speaking about. Is it an object, a process, a pattern, a state, a characteristic, a quantity, a symbol, a definition, an idea, a feeling, an action, an institution, an archetype, something useful, something abstract such as Beauty, a social concept such as a State or Law or the Constitution, or a fiction that illustrates a real situation? Is it an actuality, a potentiality or a principle? Does it refer to a fact or a meaning or a value or is it an instruction as to how we should think or see or behave in order to achieve certain goals or is it an explanatory device that helps understanding? Does it refer to information, understanding or awareness? Are we speaking about sense data, rational arguments, descriptions, inner experiences or insights? Are we referring to actions, feelings or thoughts? - All these also provide information.
Allah is regarded as not like anything (Surah 112) but He described in the Quran. That description is what needs to be understood. We know directly, through our senses only the things that have been created. The Creator who is not one of these things is not known that way. He is only known through the spirit that is within us when it is activated and not dormant or obscured owing to our attachment to created things, the fact that our attention is directed and confined to material objects and events usually connected with our immediate needs and desires.
(a) Some people want physical proof of God or the soul or angels. For instance they require that one should find it through the telescope or microscope. Others want it through calculation, perhaps through computers. But others require direct experience. There are people who have direct experience but others dismiss this as hallucination or because, being subjective, it cannot be corroborated or because descriptions of the experience vary. Certainly experiences can be illusions or hallucinations. But they are regarded so when they fail the test of repetition and consistency with other experiences and relevance to the process of living. They also sometimes require corroboration from other people. The fact is that religious experiences are corroborated by those of others, but descriptions are translations and these are well known to vary even in ordinary reporting of news. Interpretation tends to be controlled by cultural factors and assumptions. But it is not necessary for someone who has direct experience to require confirmation from others. Apart from the deeper experiences of mystics, many other people also have revelatory or inspirational experiences from those converted to religion to students who after periods of incomprehension and futile effort suddenly receive a flash of understanding.
(b) It is also sufficient evidence that one understands the Message because it fits into a comprehensive self-consistent system of experiences or ideas that are relevant to the conduct of life in a manner that enables adjustment to reality. When the Message, the Quran is understood then it points to the Objective Reality from which it came. Appropriate efforts are necessary to understand what the concepts refer to.
(c) When we see that millions of human beings in all parts of the world and throughout history have certain characteristics in common, then we conclude that there is something real about them that have a necessary and useful function in their lives. Religion is such a universal characteristic. It is a conscious attempt to understand, in a comprehensive manner, the world they are dependent on, in order to adjust themselves to reality through a conscious way of life which involves not just thought but also feeling and action. The various concepts are means by which this is done. True that errors of interpretation, thought and belief can be and are also widespread and there are differences in the way religions are formulated and practiced, but there is certainly something that they have in common. There is a synthesis of outer and inner experiences which is deeply imbedded in the subconscious mind to which perhaps the name Archetype has been applied. We could call it the Spiritual Centre SC. Human beings are, after all the products of the same forces, processes and laws that operate in the rest of the Universe with which they also interact. They, therefore, have a level of a much more intimate direct contact with Reality than indirectly through the senses. This SC in rare occasions comes into consciousness of some more sensitive individuals we call Prophets and Messengers. Their message, which is an interpretation and verbalisation of their SC, finds resonance in the SC of other people. They find a following among those people in whom the SC is awakened to various degrees. It becomes a question of examining and trying to understand the various formulations and deciding which of the alternative formulations provide the best guidance.
(d) It is necessary to understand that there is no absolute distinction in Islam between the material, the ideal and the spiritual. There are only different kinds of phenomena. As they are all derived from the Word of Allah which is Truth, then these consist of truth and the processes in which they are involved consist of transfer of truth. Truth refers to order and is something like Information in science. So Islam is concerned with different kinds of truth and their interaction rather than matter and energy and truth can be apprehended by the human mind. It is induced in us by our interaction with reality.
(e) The evidence for Allah is that the Universe exists, that Prophets and Messengers have been sent with guidance and teachings that still exist in scriptures and that we have the Spirit within us that gives us consciousness, conscience and will through which we can understand and follow the guidance.
(f) The proof of religion is that the founder, the Prophet claims to have received revelation and this is supported by the fact that :- (i) The Prophet based his life on it. (ii) That he presented a teaching or scripture that is recognised by people as true and relevant because it fits in with something deep within them. (iii) He did some extra-ordinary acts, some of which were regarded as miraculous. When a person makes a claim that he is sent by God there are four possibilities:- that he is telling the truth, that he is lying, that he is insanely deluded, or that he is mistaken. Those to whom the religion is presented have to decide for themselves which of these is likely to be the case. (iv) The function of religion is spiritual development and that it does so. True that its misuse also makes some people worse but that is a risk attached to every instrument including science when used to make weapons of mass destruction and simple things like knives.
(g) There have been attempts at formal logical proofs of God by many people and they have also been refuted. Such proofs being purely intellectual and verbal do not have any impact on the conduct of life. But these proofs can be taken as pointers to an experiential truth which ought to be understood more directly. For instance:-
It is argued that all things have causes so there must be a first cause which is itself uncaused. There must have been a beginning to the Material Universe, there must, therefore, have been a non-material something that brings it into existence. This is God. These arguments are refuted on the grounds that one could then ask who or what is the cause of God and so on to infinity. But if we actually look at the Universe and things in it we see that they are finite and known as distinct from each other because they have limitations and they do have a beginning and end. This is not the case with the Whole of which everything else is a part. We think of God as Infinite from which the Universe and our knowledge of it gradually emerges.
The argument from Design, known as the Teleological Argument, a version of which is also found in the Quran, states that things in the world have structures and order that look designed. Therefore there must be a Designer. The counter argument is that Charles Darwin's theory of gradual evolution by random mutation and Natural Selection has destroyed that argument. This, however, is not true. Both these can be attributed to God. Evolution cannot take place without certain laws and processes the existence of which must be explained. When we see an artist designing something or an Engineer or Architect building something we see that there is a process involved having stages controlled by certain forces. Cars and Aeroplanes also evolve but require human designers. Birds create nests and these are designed. Human beings are natural and so is their intelligence and they cause evolution in plants and animals by selective breeding. It is absolutely unnecessary to suppose that intelligence and purpose are exclusively human characteristics.
It is asserted that a Universe as described by science is quite different from a Universe from a Universe that also has a God. We have three kinds of entities in the Universe and we could describe three kinds of Universes or aspects of the Universe accordingly, namely:- Dead, Living and Conscious. Certainly, the present scientific description of the Universe and its contents, including man, is something dead. Islam does not admit such a Universe. But God transcends the Universe, though He is also imminent in it as well as being personal. It has all three aspects. But the Universe itself is not the same thing as the experience or description of it. The described Universe also includes the scientific one as a subset.
(h) Apart from misunderstanding the concept of God, attempts have also been made to disprove the existence of God as the Origin and Creator of the Universe. One argument goes as follows:- Things with great complexity cannot arise spontaneously. The probability of something arising is inversely proportional to its complexity. We see that evolution proceeds from the simple to the complex by stages. For the Universe to have been created by God, He must be as or more complex than the Universe. Therefore, his existence is highly improbable. The fallacy here is that characteristics about the created world are being applied to the Creator and that the kind of reasoning which arises in the creature because of his adjustment to the created world is being used to understand the Creator. It is, by now well known that no argument can be valid that uses the parameters that describe the parts to describe the whole. It is also well known that in the beginning of the Universe with the Big Bang, the Laws of the Universe did not exist.
Another disproof of God is said to be the Anthropic Principle. According to this, we exist and can think about the Universe because conditions for our arising happened to be right. It is not the case that these conditions were made so that we can arise. But this Principle has been specially invented to deny that the Universe has a purpose. Indeed, it is an Islamic belief that the Creation of the Universe is a greater thing than the creation of man (Quran 40:57). But it is a fact that the evolution of the Universe is such that man would arise. There is a direction of increasing consciousness. This is inherent as a potentiality from the very beginning just as a tree is inherent in the seed and the adult human being in the fertilised egg cell. Were the Universe to be different, then other kinds of creatures would have arisen with the same or other faculties that were adapted to allow them to exist in those conditions. Perhaps, there are such Universes. The fact remains that when we consider Reality as a whole such that is nothing outside it, then all causes are within it and this is the same as Intension. In so far as things arise from a single origin all things also remain inter-dependent. In so far as Time is a dimension as required in Science, cause is the same as purpose seen from another angle just as hunger is both.
According to another attack on Religion it is to be regarded as a mistaken by-product of certain evolutionary useful characteristics. For instance, human children being immature and inexperienced must obey parents to survive a hazardous world. So respect and obedience is built into them. They will then believe any tales that the parents invent to control them. Later they obey the communal or national authority and God is simply a Universal Parent substitute. In fact, the Self within a person is formed by the parents and the culture. This is a possibility, but children grow up and the evolutionary need to adjust to the world becomes more urgent. It does not explain why common doctrines are accepted that are connected with the teachings of a small set of world teachers, Prophets. One could argue that the Parents, as also the Self and the Social Authorities, are really the substitutes or representatives of God. Religion is merely the recognition that God is the Universal Authority.
It is supposed that errors of thought arise by Association and Transfer. Things that seem similar owing to inadequate discrimination or knowledge are substituted for each other. The mind suppresses, distorts and invents, creating illusions and fantasies, owing to desire and fears. The sexual impulse that creates attachments, fascination and love can be transferred from spouse and off-springs to objects, institutions, causes, persons and God. The desire for importance leads people to associate themselves with sources of power or to dominate and manipulate others. Thus the three sets of motivating drives - the self-preservative, the sexual and the self-extensive can be diverted to produce Religion. However, this knowledge can be a warning to avoid false religion. True Religion comes into existence to fight corrupting tendencies by providing the basic psychological needs for security, affection and significance.
Critic:-
You say that the function of religion is spiritual development, to improve people. But we see that non-religious people are as good as religious ones and often better than them.
Comment:-
Religious people are not necessarily better than non-religious people. Religion is for sinners and those who know their limitations and wish to improve.
(1) There is a distinction between (a) the teachings of a religion, (b) the culture and social institutions associated with it and (c) the nature and behaviour of the people who know, understand and practice the religion to various degrees and with varying degrees of intensity and correctness or not at all.
(2) (a) It is not denied that there are all kinds of people within a religion as in there are outside it with a range of intelligences, virtues, personalities, knowledge and abilities. There are people who are usually or at times and to different degrees naïve, superstitious, irrational, dogmatic, ritualistic, domineering, gullible, bigoted, obsessional, timid, hysterical and suggestible and so on. But these are personality characteristics not attributable to the religion. Removal of religion is unlikely to change this. On the contrary it is the function of religion to try to improve them. (b) Nor is it denied that religious people have done much evil and that much evil has been done in the name of religion. It is also pointed out that religions can be and has been misinterpreted, adulterated and misused by insufficient study, prejudices, fantasies, self-interest, automatisms, conditioning and sometimes deliberately or semi-consciously by power seekers for their own agendas. But all this can and does apply to any other system of thought in the political, economic or cultural fields. All the more reason that Religion should be purified, properly taught and applied..
(3) We cannot compare the best people in one camp with the worst in the other. That is biased and gives a false impression.
(4) Religion provides values. Non-Religious people might judge the differences according to their own criteria and not by those of Religion.
(5) One should not judge the efficiency of a religion by the difference between religious and non-religious people but by the difference it makes to a person before and after he accepts and practices his religion.
(6) The religion is best judged when the religion is understood and practiced correctly and sincerely.
(7) Religions bring about several kinds of changes:- (a) Externally observable changes in behaviour such as greater charity, compassion, tolerance, patience, consideration, friendliness, honesty, fidelity, truthfulness, responsibility, reliability, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, helpfulness, cooperativeness, control of aggression, selfishness, greed, vanity, lust, envy and arrogance etc. (b) Internal qualities such as contentment, peace, and happiness, greater awareness, inner integration, self-control, stability, confidence, faith, love and hope, resilience, courage and endurance. (c) Religion provides guidance and a comprehensive framework of reference within which experiences can be interpreted and adjustment to Reality can take place, a better self image, purposiveness and direction to life, and psychological healing. It provides three psychological essentials, namely security, affection and significance.
It is not denied that moral values have been built into man through the evolutional process - this is the same as saying Allah has placed them in us. But it is well known that environmental, social and cultural conditions have caused these to atrophy or to be repressed. Degeneration does take place and it is also a fact that evolution can still continue. The fact is that greed, lust, envy, hate, egotism, vanity, laziness etc do exist and produce rationalisation, conflict, injustice and injury and that all nations require a police force to enforce law and keep order. But the inner policeman and self-discipline is better and more effective than an outer oppressive one, and action from understand, love of God and the spirit within is even better. Human beings are able to justify anything including lying, persecution, torture, mass murders and all kinds of perversions. Some teaching is certainly needed that will guide and channel thought, motive and action in constructive directions. The function of Religion is to make us conscious of the inherent values, to reinforce them and to enhance them, which is also an inbuilt striving. As the Quran says:-
“Then set your purpose for religion as a man upright by nature - the nature made by Allah in which He has made men; there is no altering (the laws of) Allah's creation; that is the right religion, but most people do not know - turning to Him only, and be careful of your duty to Him and keep up prayer and be not of those who ascribe partners to Him (polytheists), of those who split their religion and became schismatic, every sect rejoicing in its own tenets. “ 30:30-32
Critic:-
The onus is on Muslims to prove that their doctrines are correct. I could claim that God talks to me and he tells me that he does not plan to really convey any message to mankind, and that all those who declared themselves God's messenger are false messengers because God denies them. And what if I tell you that God talks to me alone because he loves me more than anyone else? How can you refute this in anyway?
Answer:-
If that is what He says to you then it applies only to you. It does not affect others. But I would assess what you say by its self-consistency with what else you say, your behaviour and its consistency with the rest of life and existence and its relevance to my life and that of others.
Religion is about personal development. It is not possible to prove things to others, especially if they do not have the capacity or desire and do not make the necessary efforts. The onus is not upon anyone to prove a religion to others, but upon each person to prove it for themselves. Evidence depends on experience, repetition, the consistency of these and the relevance of this for our lives. It is for each person to judge this for himself. It cannot matter to a person whether another person believes and applies it or not. It matters only to him.
Critic:-
I believe one cannot rely on the arguments presented by the Quran that it is from some Creator, for that is circular logic and therefore dismissed. I believe that upon consideration and contemplation of the evidence one is led to conclude that Mohammed merely suffered from a temporary mental condition causing physical discomfort and hallucinations which he came to believe was revelation.
Comment:-
That is what you believe but it is not what we believe. We believe you are mistaken or cannot see or comprehend or simply do not wish to see or accept for some reason.
We do not think it is a circular argument. We believe the Quran points to something and we see that to be true. Therefore, what the Quran says is true.
Critic:-
Muslim literature often uses phrases like "Science of Hadith" or "Hadith Science" for the technical study of Hadiths. It is a translation of the Arabic "Ulum al-Hadith". My question concerns the accuracy of translating "Ulum" as "Science".
Comment:-
The word science refers to the fact that it has some object to study, namely the various Hadith and these are to be studied by means of certain techniques and even using special language. That is its connotation.
In the West science has many denotations. It refers to Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Sociology, Psychology, Cosmology all of which have different objects and use different sets of techniques. According to some people Mathematics is not a science because its objects are not material and according to others only Physics is a Science because it alone is exact. Some people do not think Psychology is a Science.
Some people think a science consists of a body of knowledge, but this body has changed over the years and so have its techniques. All sciences have discovered some facts, but they interpret these and construct theories to connect them and organise them into systems through hypotheses and theories which are often very speculative and even bizarre and cannot be verified. Even if supporting evidence is found there is no certainty that some other Theory might not better explain them.
Some people think these theories are not truths but only explanatory devices. Sciences contain such artefacts as Centres of Gravity, Specific Heat, etc. that do not really refer to any object at all.
Critic:-
The negative impact of secularization on all religions, Islam or otherwise, is a global 'western' phenomenon that needs to be better understood by Muslims. All faith based religions are based to an extent on illusions, which remain stable so long as people are only exposed to their traditional religion, however, when globalisation forces them into contact with other religions and they start to compare their religion, their illusions start to be undermined.
Comment:-
We are interested in the Truth, though understanding it requires an appropriate language and that changes in time, place and culture and the knowledge, experience, efforts and capacity for understanding of the individual. Contact with other religions and secular and scientific ideas creates a challenge to understanding, because of the increase in the number of concepts, attitudes and points of view. There is illusion owing to inadequate knowledge and misinterpretation, delusion owing to fantasies but we also gave confusion.
It is true that religious people are prone to illusions, fantasies, superstitions and misunderstanding in connection with their religion. Each religion has adherents with a wide range of intelligence, personalities, limitations, knowledge, motives and abilities. That is so whether or not they are religious. With increasing education, the simple view has to be replaced with a more sophisticated one.
Critic:-
I think the solution is to move from faith based religions to religions based less on faith and more on reason.
Comment:-
Reason, if that means verbal intellectual thinking is a problem just as emotionalism, sentimental attachments, addiction, superstition, habit and mental conditioning are also problems. Religion is based on experiencing, on perception of truth, on insight not on thought. It requires not just impersonal information, but understanding and awareness. It is the "heart" not the intellect that is to be involved. If faith means blind belief, then, of course, that is mere prejudice not insight. But that is a misunderstanding. Correctly understood, faith means having confidence enough to base ones life on something. It refers to thought, motive and action. All three are sources of information. It is required to achieve anything.
Critic:-
I am tempted to think that to create the world, God first created the Laws of Nature. Thus everything in this world is governed by these Laws and God cannot or does not intervene. Therefore, there cannot be any evidence for God and religion is not really required.
Comment:-
You ought to resist that temptation. That is Deism, not Theism. Islam, as others religions based on revelation, does affirm that God intervenes in that He sends Messengers, Scriptures and guidance to the faithful. As Allah is not like anything, it could be regarded from a materialist point of view as Atheistic. On the other hand because it recognises that Allah has many Attributes (Names), Islam could be regarded as incorporating Polytheism. As Allah transcends the Universe, there is a Deistic element in Islam. As He is also imminent in the Universe Islam could also be regarded as Pantheistic in some ways. Allah is also personal in that His spirit is in man and this gives Islam an anthropomorphic aspect. In fact, Islam is strictly monotheistic and transcends all these different definitions which might be regarded as unjustified subdivisions.
The Forces, Laws and Processes of Nature are created by God. But that does not mean you already know all the Laws or that this implies, for instance, that because the Law of Gravity requires things to fall to the ground then birds and aeroplanes cannot fly. It is a question of using one law (e.g. of Aerodynamics) against another (e.g. Gravity) and paying the price in energy.
If the Word of God is the original force from which all other forces progressively differentiate, this does not imply that this original force has ceased to exist.
Human beings have intelligence and by this they can create what did not exist before and they can also show compassion and forgiveness. Are these unnatural factors? Where did human beings get them from? Are human beings super-natural beings? Are they not part of he Universe made of the materials and forces that exist in it? Why is it that some people find it impossible to comprehend that "intelligence". is as much a natural aspect of the Universe as it is of man? No doubt, it is because they have a false arrogant idea about man coupled with an anthropomorphic idea of God.
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