Is God a Man?

[guest]

For one, you do not know the creation of Allah, all you see is what "he" lets you see. Keep that in mind, again that is limited by the speed of light and its rules. Do you think you can destroy the universe or create anything within it? Indeed we have no power whatsoever to destroy energy (a fundamental law of the universe is conservation of information hence aspects of physics are analogous to information theory).

As for 19:67 look at the statement. There was no such creation as a "human being" up until a couple of million years ago. However all his energy was still there, just not in that shape (in the materials that were used to create Earth).

Peace OPF,

Keep in mind that God created the light, therefore, He can make it go faster or slower if He so chooses. I DO NOT accept your implied assertion that the God is limited by the speed of light. That limitation is for earthly domain. This is also true for the law of conservation of energy. And this is validated by the verse:

19:67 - Did the human being forget that we created him already, and he was nothing?

Nothing is not equal to energy. Therefore, your hypothesis is false.

[OPF]

Peace OPF,

Keep in mind that God created the light, therefore, He can make it go faster or slower if He so chooses. I DO NOT accept your implied assertion that the God is limited by the speed of light. That limitation is for earthly domain. This is also true for the law of conservation of energy. And this is validated by the verse:

19:67 - Did the human being forget that we created him already, and he was nothing?

Nothing is not equal to energy. Therefore, your hypothesis is false.

Yes, God is all-powerful but consider what all-powerful means within the limits of our reality. For instance, the limits of our reality say that there is no such thing as a square circle. Do you know why there is no such thing as a "square circle"? Because "a square circle" is not a truthful phrase, it is evident falsehood, it is like saying 2+2=5. God created the universe this way, not ANY OTHER way. So stick to reality, follow the quran in 30:8 if you claim to believe. However, God could have created the universe in a different way in which the speed of light as we percieve is different. However that is a different universe. In fact, the only thing that would be different is the proportioning of that particular universe.

God is not "limited by the speed of light", God IS the light (24:35, 24:35, see 24:35, if you haven't seen 24:35 then you will be perpetually blind). Rather, we are limited by the speed of light, God is what limits US, no limits can we place on the One who created us. Now when I say light, I am not talking about merely the visible spectrum but rather, information/truth; this is "light" in the truest sense of the quranic word. Light mediates every single interaction and is the rate limiting step in EVERY single interaction (consider 8:17). Additionally, you do not grasp what the speed of light is. While we think of it as merely "299,792,458m/s" which implies that there is such a thing as "299,792,459m/s" (there is NOT), the definition of a meter is indeed the reverse of that. For all intents and purposes, the "speed of light" is INFINITE to us (look up rapidity). If you throw a human into a nuclear reactor and transform him into pure energy then perhaps he can travel as fast as god. Of course, then he is no longer anything worth mentioning, you sure as hell are not going to define those photons as a "human".

If you check out the equations of special relativity, you will notice that light occupies the most powerful position concievable to us (and far beyond). We can Lorentz transform from the perspective of massive objects (creation) to other massive objects but there is no such transform to the "point of view" of a photon. That is to say, they operate outside of time, you can think of them as having a start and end point but they do not "travel" in any sense. Indeed, photons are what actually mediate time and hence "speed". In addition, nothing created (i.e. mass) can travel faster than the speed of truth. In such a way, Einstein's famous equation of E=(m0c^2)^2+(pc)^2 is equivalent to saying that God is the greatest.

Please keep your mind within the same rational reality that it operates in, we know nothing else and nor can we ever. If you wish to rely on "God" as some unfalsifiable entity, you will never have certainty in faith, there will always be doubt in your mind and there is good reason for that, unfalsifiable entities have no credibility or power whatsoever to do anything, they are idols. Yet the quran points out many examples of signs of God in the universe, all of them are falsifiable.

Yet again, there was no such thing as a "human being" prior to our existence. The total amount of energy assigned by God to "human beings" prior to our existence is a grand total of... zero. When you keep in mind that God is the light of the universe, you only need to open your eyes to be reminded of his eternal presence (and for those who intend to use their god given brains, they only need to remember that they exist), there is no thinking "God is nowhere to be seen so I'm cool, let me transgress" because God is EVERYWHERE to be seen, you really cannot run away from this dude, even in the most literal way. The faster you run away from God, the harder it gets for you!

[Ahmad Bilal]

Peace Rami,

Maybe God is formed of dark matter which scientists claim that it is holding the universe together and without it the universe will fade away, that is interestingly the same description of what God is doing in the Quran. Could it be what Moses saw is a matter/antimatter annihilation reaction when God approached the mountain?

Is God extremely dark but when he removes the barrier react with matter and become luminescent? Physics of antimatter could be different which could explain the mysteriousness of God.

Just a thought.

That is a very interesting position, and it should definitely be looked into. The Qur'aan does indeed allude to a conclusion similar to this, saying that Allah will approach our realm/planet (CLEAR ANTHROPOMORPHISM), and His presence would cause the stars to crash together and the Universe to "fold" or combust. Based on this, your idea seems very plausible, especially from a 'theologically scientific' point of view... Thanks for the input.

Peace!

[shadowpuppet]

Everything is connected... even between countless miles of space and dimension.
It is the intelligence behind it all.

They say, now, that there are subatomic particles which act before light even touches the surface of a thing
and that there is far more going on in blank space than there is in 3 dimensional substance.

We are a part of all that but, still, there is an ultimate Source which lies within and without everything and we are merely one expression of it and only in the best case scenario.

Yes, if we fight it we are still connected but... it has a kind of recoil which some people identify as karma.
You set it right... submit
.......and you become a part of that intelligence.

People have been beheaded for saying much less but ...truth is truth.
We are in a position to either deny it, now, or celebrate it.

Some are still dying for it.

 

[FriskyBun]

Hmm... nobody responded to my post.  I wonder why?  Is it not... interesting?

[Ahmad Bilal]

Peace, FriskyBun!

Hmm... nobody responded to my post.  I wonder why?  Is it not... interesting?

I thought I already responded to your post... Anyway, here's my take on your analysis: It is completely speculatory. This idea is extremely important, because it touches on the nature of God Himself. What is He? Where is He? Is He even a "he"?! Those are important questions. Why? Because, in your deification of an infinite idea of Allah, you're worshipping something that you can't even explain or identify. You can't even prove that your god exists, and that's because he doesn't exist - he's just an idea or deific speculation. The only way that the Almighty God can be depicted in reality is if He is a REAL Being. Otherwise, there's no logical explanation why, or how, an unreal entity would interact with real people or compose real books.

Also, you said that there being "none like" God refers to nothing having any of His characteristics or possessing any similarities in relation to His. I think that concept is absurd, to say the least (no offense). For starters, Allah is known as "the best knower"; a 'knower' is one who possesses Knowledge. Therefore, if Allah can't be defined through relative comparisons, then that's like saying that humans can't possess knowledge. Allah is merciful and kind; can't humans possess these qualities too? In fact, these types of attributes can ONLY be expressed by humans, since an abstract idea can't be merciful, gracious, kind, or forgiving. In order for God to express these characteristics on an individual or mass level, He'd have to be a REAL Being, not an abstract concept. For example, gravity is a force in the Universe. However, gravity can't be nice and kind to people. Electricity can't be gracious or merciful. These attributes would have to be expressed by a Person.

Sorry for the late reply. I guess I thought I responded when I really didn't. My apologies... Peace!

[OPF]

"Kindness", "mercy", "graciousness", etc - all these abstract concepts, one can put them into REAL numbers. Just because it is beyond your/our comprehension to understand what any of these qualities imply in terms of the physical does not mean they are not very real.

What I'm saying therefore, is that there is no such thing as abstract except for the truly abstract things such as paradoxes ("square circle") and they are based on incorrect logic. Where logic is correctly used, nothing is abstract, just merely well out of the bounds of our own ability in thought, our computational power.

Now let's take it from your side. Apparently you need attributed to be expressed by a "Person". So let's take 1 single solitary "Person" and have him express some attributes. Now, can you define what makes your "Person" separate from the rest of creation? You might say "skin" but no, that is an illusory boundary as demonstrated by the fact that things can pierce it. Indeed, the physical reality is that there is nothing separating "you" from anything else aside from your own mental constructs, you are physically interconnected to the rest of creation in a divine free flowing exchange of energy. So now I ask, if your "person" who happens to be physically merged into unity with the whole damn universe can express these attributes, why can Allah in the abstract not do so?

Additionally, why can an abstract idea not express things? What about "forgiving kindness", that's an abstract idea that happens to express the qualities of "forgiveness" and "kindness". Of course, until you move away from the shuffle and tripe and twaddle of philosophical mumbo jumbo, and start paying attention to the core physical objective reality we live in and can never ignore or blind ourselves from, you will never make any headway in understanding what "Allah" is. There is nothing wrong with "Allah" being a REAL entity, restricting "Allah" to an anthropomorphic presence in reality however carries with it a world of distortion and idiocy.

Peace Rami,

That is a very interesting position, and it should definitely be looked into. The Qur'aan does indeed allude to a conclusion similar to this, saying that Allah will approach our realm/planet (CLEAR ANTHROPOMORPHISM), and His presence would cause the stars to crash together and the Universe to "fold" or combust. Based on this, your idea seems very plausible, especially from a 'theologically scientific' point of view... Thanks for the input.

Peace!

Reference please. The presence of "Allah" causes everything irrespective of what is contained in "everything". Where is it said that "Allah will approach", and using your understanding, therefore mean that Allah will physically translate his position from A to B?

Peace.

[Rami]

I am reading the God delusion by Richard Dawkins and we seem to agree. Quoting,

'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 nonsupernatural
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.'


Let me sum up Einsteinian religion in one more quotation from
Einstein himself: 'To sense that behind anything that can be experienced
there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose
beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble
reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious.' In this
sense I too am religious, with the reservation that 'cannot grasp'
does not have to mean 'forever ungraspable'. But I prefer not to
call myself religious because it is misleading. It is destructively misleading
because, for the vast majority of people, 'religion' implies
'supernatural'. Carl Sagan put it well: '. . . if by "God" one means
the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there
is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying . . . it does not
make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.'
Amusingly, Sagan's last point was foreshadowed by the
Reverend Dr Fulton J. Sheen, a professor at the Catholic University
of America, as part of a fierce attack upon Einstein's 1940 disavowal
of a personal God. Sheen sarcastically asked whether
anyone would be prepared to lay down his life for the Milky Way.
He seemed to think he was making a point against Einstein, rather
than* for him, for he added: 'There is only one fault with his
cosmical religion: he put an extra letter in the word - the letter "s".'
There is nothing comical about Einstein's beliefs. Nevertheless, I
wish that physicists would refrain from using the word God in their
special metaphorical sense. The metaphorical or pantheistic God of
the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miraclewreaking,
thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God
of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary
language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act
of intellectual high treason.

Peace,

Rami

[OPF]

Now we're talking.

If we're going to go into semantics, then by Dawkins' own admission, atheism is therefore an unsexed up version of pantheism. However, I am not concerned with "isms" here, rather the reality of the situation, physical reality itself. Call it god or "not god", it doesn't matter - it's here and it will not be ignored nor do you have a choice as to whether you can ignore it. To be brutally honest, if you (not a personal "you") are going to throw any "isms" in my face now, this is the point where I shall politely tell you to go fuck yourself - objective reality is the only thing deserving of my time.

As for the statement "it does not make sense to pray to the law of the gravity", a classic case of seeing the wood for the trees. A person has the choice to "pray" to gravity but they do not have a choice in SUBMITTING to the will of gravity. In general, any entity of the universe has no choice but to submit to the general ebb and flow of the rest of the universe. Gravity for instance determines how things will ebb and flow but it is not the flow itself, and the flow is what is important.

Regardless, there is nothing dissatisfying in such a pantheistic God. Just because one person finds that it does not satisfy their emotions does not mean it can be held true for every being. Indeed Buddhists seem to find quite a lot of emotional satisfaction in such a God.

In addition, the quranic concept of "Allah" is heavily in line with a panentheistic perspective more so than anything else. One such pointer to this perspective is that the "Alllah" of the quran makes profound statements of the state of the universe as it is and challenges people to find fault in those statements by observing the evidence itself.

Now what we have is:

* A universe that sprung up from "nothing" that began with a set of physical laws and then over "time", reconfigured itself to be in the shape it is in the present (the Schrodinger equation is a hall mark of this)
* Regarding the domain of knowledge available to humanity, "God" is a massive "thing" talked of - if he exists, God does not hide "his" presence, damn sure of that
* 14 billion years into this universe, a book known as the "quran" pops into existence; it claims to prove once and for all that God exists and makes significant statements as to what is going on, and the manner in which it dictates that people should think logically about things is in itself perfectly in line with logic, and the book challenges people to prove it wrong in this regard
* It claims is the last book and it is preserved from further distortion; Distortion has been attempted and despite this, the book is still here in one piece and the distortion is now cleanly separated from religion and known as "hadeeth"/other things; such a word was present but beforehand the distortions of men were kept together with the word of God, now it is preserved and clearly delineated

In my eyes, these factors alone give the quran the credence it deserves and inevitably shall have to stand on its own as a beacon of truth from the infinite creator, all that remains is to merely test the quran's statements against objective reality. Other books and belief systems are ruled out only because there is a logical error. If not, then it is assumed that the quran's statements are identical to those statements made by other books/belief systems where logically true.

Now, the reason I like the quranic pantheistic God is that it provides logical explanations for everything. Regardless, all questions as to why "God is this or that" can be responded to in a simple manner - if God is all powerful and all knowing, and you are neither, then who are you relative to God to argue as to why things are constructed in this fashion? Rather, one can assert that God exists and get to know the creator and see how his methods work - in a manner identical to the quran and the same method of science and logic already intuitively available to the general public.

In essence, the whole problem is with the semantic definition of God. We have two parties -

* True believers in God, who assume that "God" exists and also that the God of reality is that same God, which obviously should be the case should God exist; if God does not exist then this party would be the first to silence themselves
* People who wish to deny reality by assuming their concept of "God" is truthful and being blind to the actual objective reality around them (any "ism" can be placed herein)

Now, the second case will not be subject to falsifiability and is therefore out of the picture, that is to say that viewpoints which deny the reality around us are to be ignored irrespective of what they state.

The first case is far more interesting and completely open to the world of falsifiability. Instead of creating a preconception of "God" and seeking to avoid testing it against reality, rather find "God" by testing any conception you have against reality. It should be obvious that if God exists that nobody requires "faith", rather they have been misguided to believe that such a concept is illogical/unfalsifiable and hence requires "faith" to counteract its absurdity. Conversely, if God does not exist, then the process of falsification will instantly dismiss the possibility of such a "God".

So thus we have an easy manner in which to define "God".

[Rami]

Peace,

If God is indeed a panthesitic diety so His will is simply defined by the laws of nature. So this God is predictable by science. Therefore, science is simply the 'Psychology of God'. This is cool but contradicts the idea about praying in the Quran where a personal God can be called and asked for things. This means the Quran failed the objective reality test and so you are deluding yourself by contradicting positions. Praying has been defined as false by the scientific method.

Peace,

Rami