Sunday, May 07, 2006

Why Allah Can Not Be God?

Quran is supposed to be an important message for humanity, right. If Quran was an important message to humanity from a real God, its Creator would have made SURE that the message would not be taken in a wrong way. The day is coming when more and more people are hating Islam. Assuming that Quran was from God, it is unfortunate to be born in such an era, where this important message of God is being hated so much.
Would the real creator (if he exists) allow any of His dear creation to be born in a place where His message was being hated so much, and thus not receive the message in the correct context? Ofcourse not.
The message of a Real God to his creation, would be very important and there would be NO one who would be able to tarnish the clean image of his message.
We have sane people finding faults with Quran and talking about using it as toilet paper. Would a real God allow this to happen to his message?

Not if he thought his message was important!
God wants to test us? For what? Are we the guineu pigs of the Universe? No, we're not! God doesnt even have any rights on us!

e) God would never declare his previous messages to be false, and only the latest one(Islam) to be true.
A real God would NEVER say this:

"And if any believe not in Allah and His Messenger, We have prepared, for those who reject Allah, a Blazing Fire!" -Quran 48:13

This verse is clearly talking about Islam and not just any Messenger or religion. There is another verse which says that "no religion will be accepted of man except Islam". (3:85).

f) A real God would not violate our rights.

Besides the above reasons, there is another logical explanation of why Allah cannot be a God.
Allah is a God who becomes offended if you abuse or disobey him. What kind of weak God is that?

Here is an explanation, of why:

1) God cannot be offended when man abuses him. 2) Allah cannot be a true god. I will present two approaches to prove this. First, I will prove by logical reasoning that Allah cannot be a God. Then, I will present an analogy to support my claim further.

2) Logical Reasoning

God is supposed to be an infinitely powerful being. It is not possible to have any power or influence over an infinitely powerful being. It is not possible to effect God in any way.
I cannot make God angry, niether can I make him happy. If I could make God happy or angry, it would mean that I have some control over God's emotions. Thus, I would have some control over God. But such a God, whose emotions (anger) I can control, cannot be a God. When even a billion blackholes, which have the power to bend light, due to enormous gravitational attraction, cannot effect God, then can I, a 65 Kg man, effect God in any way? No.Now, let us study Allah, the God of Muslims. A muslim is told to worship Allah and praise him. Allah created man to worship him (Q:51.56). We know that Allah will punish all those who dont beleive in him Quran 48.13 "And if any believe not in Allah and His Messenger, We have prepared, for those who reject Allah, a Blazing Fire!" Thus, if Allah will punish anyone who does'nt beleive in him, he will also punish anyone who abuses him. But if Allah punishes anyone who abuses him, it means that Allah is offended when a human abuses him. This means that a human being can offend Allah, by either disobeying his orders, or abusing him. If a human can offend Allah, it means that the human being has control over Allah's emotions. A human being has control over Allah's anger and thus has partial control over Allah. But we know from our earlier discussion, that a being cannot be a God, if its emotions can be controlled by a human being.
Note: Abusing another human is a different matter, because a human can be effected by abuse, since she/he is not infinitely powerful, as God is. It makes sense to say that if God existed, he would provide justice to all those who were abused in any way, and would give punishment to those who abused the humans. BUT, God would not be angry at the criminals. The role of a good judge is to provide justice, without being effected by hate or anger, induced by the criminal. If Allah can become angry due to a human abusing him, the rule of Allah being the strongest entity is violated. Conclusion: Allah, the God of Muslims, can not be a God. Now I will present an analogy to make this explanation more clear.


Analogy

A guy whom we shall call 'X', is doing a study on social behaviors, decides to do an experiment. He wants to see the reaction of abuse on different types of people. He goes out on a street to meet people and chooses one guy whom he calls 'A'.
X says some verbal abuse and racial remarks to 'A'. But 'A' is a cool-headed guy and does not mind the abuse. Instead, he thinks to himself, that this guy must be insane. 'A' does not let his anger grow and just looks on to 'X' with amusement and raises his eyebrows and then ignores ‘X’, thinking its nothing to be serious about. X notes down the reaction of 'A' in his research journal and walks away to find another guy, whom he calls 'B'. Now, ‘B’ is a hot headed guy, who can become angry on the smallest of things. ‘X’ calls him some verbal abuse along with racial remarks. ‘B’'s anger shoots up very quickly and his blood begins to boil. He starts abusing ‘X’ in return, making even bigger and more vulgar abuse to ‘X’, telling him to '#$^@ off'. ‘B’ starts coming near ‘X’ and it looks like hes ready to punch X in the face. Before ‘B’ can do that, ‘X’ runs away for his life and disappears.
His study is complete. Which person, 'A' or 'B', has the greater character strength ? If you were to choose a leader for a group, who would you choose between 'A' and 'B' ? The vast majority of people would chose 'A' as the leader, who has more strong character, and has proven to be more resistant to attacks than ‘B’. Lets transfer this example to God’s. Suppose there are two God's.
One of them is God ‘B’, who is a sensitive God and for him, its easy to become angry when a human abuses him. So down on the planet, there is a man who abuses God B. God B becomes angry and he plans to punish the human for what he did. The God plans to burn the human and give him all sorts of pain when he dies. The other God, called God A, is cool-headed and when He sees a human being abuse Him, He doesn't mind, because his ego is not so sensitive as that of God B. God A loves humans unconditionally and infinitely. When He sees the human abuse Him, he thinks to himself that this human might be crazy and he forgives that human. He knows that abuse doesn't effect him. He still loves the human, and he knows that a human cannot harm Him in any way. When the human will die, he will see for himself, how loving God is.
So God A says to himself : “Nevermind, he's a human, my loved creation, it doesn’t matter to me if he believes in me or not. His belief or disbelief does not effect ME because I have infinite power over all things. I cannot be effected by even a million black holes, let alone a 65 kg 5’6” tall human, who will live only 70 years.” Which of the Gods, A or B, is more strong and loving ? Which of God do you think rules the universe?
A large majority of the people would choose God 'A', the one who is not affected by human abuse or love and loves his creation infinitely. If Allah is infinite in power, he is infinite in strength of personal character. If Allah can become angry due to a human abusing him, the rule of Allah being the strongest entity is violated.

Conclusion:

God, if exists, does not and cannot become angry when a human praises/abuses him. Thus, Allah, the god of Muslims, who can be offended by abuse, can NOT be a true god.

* * *

Abul Kasem

from Muslim Apostates site.

My Answer:

The best way to know God is through the scripture. In The Bible and Quran God identifies himself well to us. He is not isolated from us. If you believe the Adam and Eve story you have to understand he created man in his image and gave him his spirit. He has man as his favor creation. Man has the will unlike the good as angels and evils as demons to do either. The two big compenets of humans are his mentality and his spirtuality and both attest to the presence of a God. You have the right to beleive or disbelive the verse in Quran " who wish to beleive to belevie and who wish to disbelive to disbelive". God anger with those who did not beleive is great since he gave signs to all of us and as individuals. The latter like an answered prayer, a vision that came true or a hardship that he got us through it. It is an anger as that of two parents who raised a child and gave him his existance and provided for him and then he denied them. In the Quran you find God talks well in favour of those who acknowledged him and did the good deeds for him. Even outside the Bible and Quran people who created Gods to worship they expected them to get angry and happy. It is actually for humans quite considerate that God gets angry and happy. A rightous man who would do the good deeds and pray to God should enjoy feeling a God that has created the whole universe is taking him personally and feeling happy with him. A God who takes prophets like Abraham and Moses to be his freinds should be very joyful to humans. God anger is related to:

1- Denying or blesphaming him in anyway.

2- Disobeying his messages and his messangers.

3- Doing injustice and mischief in the world.

Even in Christinity which is a religion of love it is clear that there is heaven and blaze of fire and God gets angry for his laws. God is not a robot or UFO he is a real great being and the best to identify him is himself. Despite his anger he has a lot of compassion and in Islam God talked about himself saying "my compassion preceeded my justice". In the few times God put harsh judgments in humanity it occured particulaly to their injustices against him and against people.

If people hate Islam Jesus himself said to Christians " they will hate you because of me". The world anger and violence are not stemed from religions but abuse of religions and the widespread injustices. Even without a religion oppression and injustices led to violence as with the communism revolution. The supposingly most relegious state in the Arab world is the most corrupt regiem in the world even. The Saudi people do not know the whealth of the King and loyal family have and how they control the whealth of their country and how they are oppressing their people despite Islam being anti-oppressive religion and for honest government.

Abul Kasem should look to the other side of God which is full of compassion, forgiveness and gifts. Few years in earth and you win luxurious eternity. If we would be all nice and rightous we may not even find or discover the anger side of God. Even of the 99 names of God he names himself " has revange" and he did not say " the revengous". He revange to his message, messangers and laws but in most time he is patient enough waiting for us to come back to him. He is not an angry God but we know how well to provoke his anger.

Catholics and Muslims - The Rapprochement.

Catholics and Muslims - The Rapprochement. 5/6/2006 - Social Interfaith - Article Ref: IC0605-2988Number of comments: 2 By: Javeed AkhterIslamiCity* -
The outpouring of affection for John Paul II is unprecedented in Muslim history. Reminiscing at the first anniversary of John Paul II's death Scott Alexander, Associate Professor of Islam and director Catholic-Muslim Studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, marveled at the outpouring of affection by Muslims as the news of the Pope's death spread. "It started out as a single phone call," he recalled "but soon grew into a flood: telephone call after telephone call from Muslim friends, colleagues, and associates from all over the United States." The proximate reasons for his popularity among Muslims, were his unfailing support for the rights of the Palestinian people, and his stand against the Iraq war. He earned a reputation in the Muslim world of a man of principle that stood for justice and peace. Appreciation of his persona came from all parts of the Muslim spectrum. The warm Catholic-Muslim relationship, however, antedates John Paul II's papacy and is not merely political but far more nuanced and complex. The Vatican's rapprochement with Islam started in Paul VI's papacy. Scholars attribute this to the influence of the distinguished French scholar of Islam, Louis Massignon, who was close to Pope Paul VI. Massignon was far more than an influential academic. Jerry Ryan in an article "The mystical vision of Louis Massignon: Islam inspired scholar's gratitude, life work and Christian faith" published in the National Catholic Reporter, Dec 17, 2004, details Massignon's relationship with Islam and Muslims. This relationship was deeply personal and marked his life in profound and dramatic ways.While being held as spy on a ship on the Tigris River Massignon had a vision, from a "Stranger without a Face", who took away everything he was and gave him everything he would become.As Braibanti points out in his monograph "The Nature and Structure of the Islamic world", as early as 1964, following the second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI declared in Ecclesiam Suam, "We do well to admire these people [of the Moslem religion] for all that is good and true in their worship of God." It was Paul VI's encyclical declaration, Nostra Aetate, proclaimed in 1965, which set forth this new relationship most clearly and fully: "They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth who also has spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God's plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own. Although not acknowledging him as God, they worship Jesus as a prophet, his Virgin Mother they also honor, and even at times devoutly invoke. Further they await the Day of Judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead."John Paul II built on these ecumenical foundations and strengthened them. In his address at his visit to the Umayyad mosque in Syria in 2001, he said "It is important that Muslims and Christians continue to explore philosophical and theological questions together, in order to come to a more objective and comprehensive knowledge of each others' religious beliefs.Better mutual understanding will surely lead, at the practical level, to a new way of presenting our two religions, not in opposition, as has happened too often in the past, but in partnership for the good of the human family.""For all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended one another" he said "we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and to offer each other forgiveness." Some feel this was an implicit apology for the Crusades.This decidedly inclusive attitude, and a serious attempt at bridge building, stands in sharp contrast against the hostile attitude of some Christian Church leaders in the US, who in the post September the 11th environment, have called Islam an evil religion and Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) an impostor and worse.The new Pope Benedictine XVI seems to be reaching out to Muslims and other traditions. "I am particularly grateful" said Pope Benedictine, "for the presence in our midst of members of the Muslim community," the International Herald Tribune reported on April 26th. History will remember John Paul II as a man of vision who believed in cooperation between faiths and traditions rather than in confrontation. The world will be better off if the Vatican continues to advance the ecumenism that John Paul II so deeply cherished and so assiduously nourished. Other faith communities could emulate his example. Massignon's metaphor of the "Stranger without a Face" has a different and less metaphysical significance in my mind. As we get to know each other, we learn from our rich traditions that enhance our mutual experience and deepen it. If, on the other hand, we fail to do so, we remain strangers without faces.

Javeed Akhter, a physician, is founding member of a Muslim American think tank the "International Strategy And Policy Institute."