Another Muslim discards Islam, a lie, but his quest for finding the supernatural continues...
This article appeared in faithfreedom.org
Often a skeptic, probing the nature of man and universe, finds himself staring at an empty void, a dead end, which marks the limit of his imagination. Often we find it when we question the nature of Universe, or the nature of Man or God. Although nonsensical, this concept of "something", which is beyond our imagination, plays an important role in our attempts to understand things and in forming our hypothesis. It doesn’t have to be exemplified much; the concept of God plays significant role in our life: it defines our morality, purpose and obligations, and also colors our point of views. People attribute this to "beyond-our-imagination realm" to prove, or, at least, to make us conceive the idea that God can exist. This article attempts to explore such a notion and get some clarity on the topic.
This "something beyond our imagination" is often labeled as 'Supernatural'; and rightly so, because it takes us into a terrain that is supposed to be beyond our senses or thinking, and because the word ‘Natural’ means something to do with existence, order, facts and laws, and hence 'Supernatural' is defined as something, which is beyond nature--i.e. laws, order, existence etc. Supernatural doesn't necessarily imply the opposite of natural, as I see some atheists use it in arguments against people of faith arguing that how can the creator of nature be beyond laws and order when the nature itself is so orderly. The word 'Supernatural' also doesn't imply maker of nature, as some creationists argue. Supernatural is something, which we cannot conceive of, or, rather, to put it in simple words – anything that we can imagine becomes a part of nature (knowledge). Hence, by definition, anything we cannot even imagine belongs to the supernatural realm.
Let’s get more clarity on this point. Consider the topic of paranormal (considering it occurs). Does it belong to nature or to the realms of supernatural? Well, by definition, it belongs to the category 'nature' – the very fact that we have such a notion of what it is (existence), what happens in it (order) and attempts to find out how it occurs (laws) makes it a part of nature. We may not know (yet) how it occurs, but our failure to explain "how" should not place in in the realm of Supernatural (inconceivable, beyond orders and laws). If we do so, we are contradicting ourselves; because although we don't know "how" (i.e. a law or sequence of events), but we know the product, which is by definition a 'natural' entity, not 'supernatural'.
For the sake of explanation, consider this example. Introducing the term 'supernatural' into a hypothesis is like using 'infinity' in mathematics. What do you get when you multiply infinite with 4 or 8 or with a given number? We can acknowledge it, but we cannot explore it. Another misconception that arises is on the word "order". One may ask, look around yourself, you find things that occur randomly, in a haphazard way; so, how can such an event belong to "Nature", because it doesn't follow any laws? It is a misconception, because "Order" doesn’t imply "planned events", but it rather means "sequence of events" or just “events”. What if there is no event? It's static. It implies that it exists. Again that belongs to nature (existence). We have seen that it is absurd to discuss the 'Supernatural', let alone dig into it to gain insight into the laws of nature.
Applying this school of thought, the concept of God, which by definition means ‘Supernatural power or a character which made the universe’ is utter nonsense. Why? It’s because you cannot add anything or attribute anything to what is Supernatural and beyond our thinking. Adding an adjective to Supernatural itself is not plausible (very much like multiplying anything with infinity).
Supernatural ‘laws’, supernatural ‘power’, supernatural ‘being’ are all, thus, redundant terms. Consider the argument that God has laid down the laws of morality for us mortals. For a thing to have morality, it must have consciousness, and this very attribute, i.e. consciousness, subjects the object which has it, to laws and order of the nature!
So the only plausible way for God to exist is to be a God of Nature (GON). This implies he can have any attribute, but this also implies that he is subjected to the characteristics of nature. For example, these questions become valid and relevant:
Who created God?
What existed before God?
How did God create us?
How did he plan the whole structure of universe?
How many times he had to practice before he finalized the human model?
Endless such questions.
Well, this is the God most people talk about – a God of Nature. And such a notion of God is not absurd as it is something we can imagine or think of. In the quest of finding the truth I will accept such a possibility. It’s not hard to imagine a character that sat zillions of years and made the laws of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics.
Soon such questions arise:
How to find him?
What does he want from us?
What has he planned for us after our death?
How does he want us to lead a life?
The answers for these questions have to be found. But how? Is there a way we can communicate with this God and know what he or she wants?
Quest for this answer leads us to religions. How do I know which religion is genuine?
This a decision one must make based on rational and ethical grounds. It will also take more than a life time to find the truth. Till then we can get closer to it by discarding the false and wrong religions. One down, 77 to go! And maybe perhaps at the end of this project we may again find ourselves at the starting point, because it is possible that all philosophies can be wrong.
I have successfully discarded one lie--Islam--based on solid proof.